Read/Listen to former client, Ron Rolph's unsolicited testimony of TPNY's services. Ron was interviewed by MBA Podcaster for a story about the process of earning a high GMAT score. TPNY is the unnamed company he worked with in NYC.

Rolph says that our integrative coaching and tutoring, for merely a week, was "invaluable" and that it helped his performance exponentially on the test, and ultimately, it aided in his acceptance to his choice school.

Below is the transcript from the interview. (To listen, click here)

To read the whole transcript click here:

 

...Let’s turn now to a first year student at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Ronald Rolph. Rolph was an infantry officer for the Marine Corp for the past eight years. He shared his personal experience of taking the GMAT with MBA Podcaster, “Initially I bought several of the test prep books just at a local bookstore and went through a few of them. I also took kind of a crash course, like a weekend seminar in Durham, North Carolina near where I was living at the time which provided some insight into the test. I think it gave me a relatively decent overview of the format and some of the types of questions and subject matter that was going to be covered but I really did not have sufficient time to prepare adequately. I was constantly being deployed as an active duty Captain in the Marine Corp, so trying to cram in studying between deployment and while overseas I really didn’t do it justice. So when I took that test initially I really felt that I was under prepared so much so that I actually canceled the scores when the test was over. I really wasn’t comfortable with even recording that score officially because I really didn’t know how to go about attacking the test appropriately and I ran out of time on I think both of the sections, the verbal and the quantitative section. Then after taking that test once it was really kind of a cold bath and a harsh dose of reality where I quickly realized that if I wanted to do well on the GMAT I really needed to dedicate more time and energy toward preparing sufficiently to do as well as I would have liked on the test. I think because of the unique format of the GMAT being not only academically but psychologically prepared to take the test is a key component to being successful on it.”

But Rolph said he was far from being mentally ready for the GMAT the first time he took the test, “As I was taking the test and you know, you see the clock ticking right there on the screen and struggling with the questions kind of a vicious cycle and I really didn’t do anywhere near as well as I had hoped on that initial test. By design the test is supposed to foster that kind of anxiety and make sure that people have adequately prepared and are able to handle those kinds of situations and I guess it just took me accepting the fact that I couldn’t do it on my own that just relying on my own previous academic experiences and my own studying wasn’t going to get me to the score that I really hoped to get. Just going through the books and doing self-study was not going to be enough, that I really needed outside help. I’d been out of school for about seven years at the time so the quantitative aspects in particular among my skills were very rusty.”

Rolph contacted a test prep company in New York. Because of his military deployment schedule, Rolph had to cram his test prep course into a single week. The company suggested he come to New York right away to work with a team of tutors who specialize in the GMAT. “I spent exactly a week up in New York City staying with a friend, having daily sessions with both verbal and quantitative tutors as well as going through some of the more intangible aspects of the test preparations, psychological aspect of the test, and confidence, etc., etc. Which really enabled me to go into the test from a much stronger, more confident perspective. And that sort of intangible aspect of the preparation I thought was as important if not maybe more important than the actual hard skills of the sentence correction or the data sufficiency problems on the test.”

Rolph explains some of the techniques the test prep company used to help him use to calm his nerves, “Mental exercises, stress reduction routines, breathing, relaxation, mental cues to keep yourself calm during stressful situation specifically as you’re taking the computer based test. And just kind of reinforcing your mental capacity to go about taking that kind of a test and just building your confidence. Initially I was a little bit skeptical, coming from the military background sometimes those sort of touchy feely things sometimes I’m a little adverse to but looking back on it that really was invaluable and I think helped exponentially my performance on the test.”

Rolph had only one math class as an undergraduate so he said he was especially unprepared for the quantitative section of the GMAT. “What the tutor did which I thought was really prudent, he kind of gaged my ability level through some initial tests and interactions and we kind of determined that trying to master everything, all of the quantitative content of the GMAT was going to be a loss cause. We would get diminishing returns there was no way we could do that. So he kind of picked and choose some of the most or more important concepts and we sort of conceded the fact that there were going to be some questions on it that were going to be beyond my level that I wasn’t going to be able to get or memorize the formulas for but he focused on some of the more general concepts, some of the more prevalent ones on the test and really reinforced those and just focused on those. And we were able to I think to mutually get me to master those.”

The test prep tutors covered the verbal section as well, “Repetition, repetition, and more repetition. She had me get the full GMAT official prep book as well the verbal supplement and do literally every single question in both of those books and really by doing that you start to sense patterns for the questions that they ask you the types of questions they ask and some of the over arching concepts that they really like to test on the GMAT. And she sort of gave me some insight as to how to go about recognizing certain concepts within sentence correction and the reading comprehension and to really pick up on those quickly to save time.”

The Saturday after his crash course in New York, Rolph flew back to North Carolina. He took the test on Monday, two days later. “I didn’t cram the day or the night before. I think that can be counterproductive. Just focused more on getting a good night sleep, eating right and make sure I was fresh for test day and really just kind of trying to clear my mind the day before.”

I asked Rolph how his experience of taking the test the second time compared to the first time, “It was night and day. In a way it was good because I took it in the same test center so I already knew what it the place looked like, I knew where it was, I was just much more confident and I had a much clearer concept of what to expect and I was as close to fully prepared as I could have been under the time constraints.” Rolph his score wasn’t quite as high as the highest he had gotten on one of his GMAT practice test but, “You know I guess ultimately the proof is in the pudding. I was able to get in to one of the programs that I had been hoping to get into so it did the job.”

Rolph said his score was in the lower end of the middle 80% range for the programs he applied to. But his unique qualifications probably helped. “Being a military applicant I think helped. What I had been told, you need to get a score that is kind of in the ballpark so it won’t be a disqualifier and that is what I was shooting for to get into that window to get in the ballpark and I was able to.”

As schools and admissions consultants suggest, Rolph did use the optional essay on his application to explain his score, “Where it asks on the application for additional information I did explain the situation and my unique job history and my inability I think prepare for it as I would’ve liked to have were it a perfect world.”

Just a few days before starting business school Rolph officially became a civilian. Rolph has some first-hand test prep advice from his own personal GMAT battle ground, “You need to kind of treat it as sort of a second job and not just something you do when you have free time but actually carving out time in your schedule to study, to work with tutors, to take practice tests because I think ultimately business schools are looking for is not necessarily somebody who can ace the test itself or can master the material but they are willing to demonstrate a dedication and a desire to get to that program, to get that degree. And I think the score on the GMAT that you get is a reflection of that dedication and desire and I think really, ultimately that is what they are looking for and that’s what they are testing by making you take that test.”

 

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