GMAT Study Kick Off !

Hoorah ! I have secured funding from my company to embark on an executive MBA programme ! I will be applying to some of Europe's top business schools. Now onto the next challenge ... putting together a first class EMBA application ! .... and the first major step of the application process ... the GMAT.

After doing some pre-work ... reading up on the GMAT and leveraging from others' learning experiences (by researching on the internet and visiting various forums) ... I decided to also contribute and put together a blog of my experiences and journey towards the GMAT (which I intend to take in late Feb/early March - depending on how my preparations are going !)

I have also purchased the following books:

• The official guide for GMAT review (11th Edition)
• The official guide for GMAT Quantitative Review
  
• The official guide for GMAT Verbal Review

Books which I purchased in the past, and will be using throughout my studies:

• Cracking the GMAT 2005 Edition (by the Princeton Review)
• GMAT 800 (by Kaplan)

Today, I put together my study schedule for the upcoming week (7 days). Didnt want to plan too far down the line ... I think 1 week is a good period of time to plan for ... especially as this is my first week, and is a week in which I will be "finding my feet": Getting to know the basics, and understanding my strengths and weaknesses,which will then help me better plan for the subsequent weeks.

The objective for this week (Week 1) is to complete the "Cracking the GMAT - 2005 Edition" book, and take the Princeton Review GMAT Practice test on Sat 29th Dec, with a review session planned for Sun 30th Dec, where I intend to go through (in detail) my answers to the test questions, focussing in particular on the ones which were incorrectly answered.

I also would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to Eric ... founder of beatthegmat.com ! A great forum and place to share experiences and lessons learned ! I am sure I will be using this forum a lot throughout the next 8 weeks or so of GMAT preparation.

One challenge I see over the upcoming 8 weeks is balancing study with work. I will be returning back to work on 2nd Jan. I suppose this is good practice for the Exec MBA programme where I will be mixing studies with a full-time hectic work schedule !