Saturday night: Dinner with GMAT prep course participants

They came armed with so many questions: How was your GMAT experience? How many times did you take the paper? Can you give me some tips? Why the St. Gallen MBA? How has your St. Gallen MBA experience been so far?

These are tough questions.

How do I reveal to them my anxieties during the paper without causing them additional stress? Hey guys, do you know that my heart was beating right along with the hands of the clock on the computer screen during the GMAT test? And do you know it was one of the most intense 4 hours of my life?

It is also hard to put into words the past 3 weeks of my MBA experience. Indeed, just 2 nights ago, I was seating on my carpet at 3 a.m. in the morning with a fellow MBA colleague, eating Swiss cheese on bread, and musing about how much we have accomplished in the 3 weeks. Wait – 3 weeks? Surely it was 3 months!

But I understand the anxieties, the dreams, the expectations and the fear of failure in their eyes – that was me in the crazy month of March 2011. So here I write a list of things I wished someone had told me before I wrote the GMAT paper:

1. Be mentally prepared. You think you’ve done the mock tests and you’re ready to rock ‘n’ roll? Please think again. The time pressure during the real test is immense, considering you need to factor in downtime when your life flashes through your head.
2. Stay calm. Do not panic even if you think you’ve spent too much time on a question or if you’ve answered the last question wrongly – move on. Recover well.
3. You are not alone. Seek comfort in the fact that many others are going through the same process, and finding it equally hard.
4. Do not be too hard on yourself. Your personality reveals what the GMAT results do not.

I hope I did my best by them, and on the behalf of all my colleagues, I wish all the participants good luck. J

Your GMAT results will never stop you from achieving your dreams.

(Note: When I completed the GMAT in March, I never thought I’d need to mention that word ever again. Life’s little surprises.)