<p>Hey everyone, I’m currently an undergrad junior at UC Davis and I had a couple of questions about the GMAT. If you could answer them, it would help A LOT! here goes…</p>
<li><p>I looked up the top MBA schools out there and the average age was between 27 and 29. When would be an ideal time to take the GMAT for successful applicants? I was planning on taking it right before graduation next year.</p></li>
<li><p>GMAT Prepartation courses? Does anyone have any recommendations on programs, books, etc. that they have used?</p></li>
<li><p>How many times can we take the GMAT and still be a strong applicant?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks everyone!!</p>
<p>PS. i was reading a couple of threads, and some mentioned that a 3.5 GPA is considered really strong when applying to the top B-Schools. Does that GPA denote undergrad or postgrad?</p>
<p>I didn't take the GMAT until I had already given myself a timetable for when I was going to go back to school. I wouldn't take it as a junior in college. Give yourself a calendar...let's say you'll work for 3 years then go back. So take it a year before you plan to go back to school. GMAT scores are only good for 3 years I think.</p>
<p>I didn't take a prep course. I studied from the Kaplan books (especially Kaplan GMAT 800). They're much harder than the actual test. Also get the Official Guide to the GMAT book. The questions from that book are pretty much what you'll see on the real test.</p>
<p>I probably wouldn't take the GMAT more than twice, unless your scores are really terrible. Although schools only take your highest score, they will be able to see each of the scores you've gotten. So if you took the test 4 or 5 times, that might weigh negatively on their assessment of your file. Sometimes people have a magic number in their head, and if they don't reach it they want to take the test again. One obvious number is 700. Let's say you get a 680. It probably isn't worth it to re-take a 680 unless you feel that you really messed up somewhere. I did that...retook a 690 because I performed really poorly on the quant and didn't reach the 80/80 split that most schools like to see.</p>
<p>The GPA that b-schools are referring to is the undergrad GPA.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great response! It was very thorough and I really appreciate it. Does anyone else have more insight to give? I'm looking to find out what many people do when they were in my situation.</p>