I already had attempted GMAT in 2019 and had scored a 650 (Q49,V29). I was working Schlumberger Asia Srvices Ltd. as a field engineer and decided to go for MBA in 2019. I was disappointed with my score, but understood that GMAT preparation would require some time and dedication. So I quit Schlumberger and started preparing for GMAT in January'20. I was running short of time because I wanted to apply to schools in R1 in 2020. So this gave me 6 months to prepare. Initially I didn't take it seriously and thought that it's just another Post Grad exam. I had subscribed to E-GMAT comprehensive course. At the end of March'20, it was clear to me that GMAT is not just another post Grad Exam, and that it required time to score good.
After I finished my course content on E-GMAT portal, I was hoping to have improve my score from 650-700 at least (A very poor assumption). On my first Sigma-X mocks (E-GMAT Mocks), I scored a 610 and was devastated. But the next day, I received an email from Dhananjay Lowe (DJ) asking if I wanted to enroll to E-GMAT Mentorship Program. I was offered it for free as iE-GMAT was running a pilot for the program. I accepted and enrolled to the mentorship program. That's where things changed.
After my discussion with DJ, he gave me milestones to cover every week in terms of my preparation and based on my performance in the milestones, the milestones were prepared. It was customised for everyone in the mentorship cohort.
I achieved every milestone because I actually saw improvement in my scores and understanding of the GMAT. As days passed by, my scores improved. But the improvement in scores was minimal to begin with and I grew impatient with GMAT Preparation. But the weekly discussions with DJ really calmed me down. And by the mid of May'20, I had crossed the 700 mark. I was targeting a 750-760 (I still am), and so I continued my preparation with full belief in the mentorship program. I started scoring a 750-760 in official mocks and Sigma-X Mocks. So I booked a date for GMAT on 11th of July'20. I was really confident but had ignored the little details which caused my score to dip. I became a little complacent towards the exam. There were 2 major mistakes I made. I forgot my passport at home and I never realised the order of the sections until the exam day. But those were minor hiccups and cannot be used as an excuse to justify my score of 710 (Q51,V34). There were several things which I realised after the exam as I had gone through a lot of materials online apart from E-GMAT courses and tests. No one can help you to score good except for you. Other programs and courses can help you to cross a certain threshold but at the end of the day, GMAT is a very logical and structured exam and it requires proper understanding of things. There are no definite rules to most of the verbal questions and the section is rightly named Verbal Reasoning. I realised that there is a limit to which anybody could have helped me in my preparation and that the rest was up to me. But E-GMAT Mentorship Program really helped me to cross that threshold. During the program, I improved massively on CR and SC. I am going to go for another attempt in a month or so to improve my score from a 710 to a 750-760.
Suggestion: Don't rush in your preparation. GMAT needs time.

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During my entire GMAT prep journey of 2 months, taking the e-GMAT Mentorship was probably the smartest decision of all.

I enrolled in the mentorship program about 10 days after I bought the e-GMAT course and started my preparation in January 2020. And starting from then till the exam date, my mentor Karan was there to guide me through every stage of my preparation. During that phase, there were a lot of times when I was stuck and confused about how to handle my weak areas, or whether my pace of preparation is good or not. But none of my doubts and queries went unanswered as he was there to relieve me of that stress. Also, the weekly check-ins on my progress were critical as it made me accountable to someone.

What makes the mentorship program a game-changer is its ability to cater to the specific needs and requirements of every student individually. There can't be one common strategy for all, and hence with the mentorship program, one can expect personalized attention and strategy tips that can't be found anywhere else.

In conclusion, I would just like to say that don't think twice before enrolling for the e-GMAT Mentorship program. It will surely be the best investment you make in your GMAT journey.

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I was introduced to DJ 3-4 months before I gave my GMAT. He has constantly supported, motivated, and guided me through this journey.
DJ helped me pinpoint my weaker areas, formulate strategies to overcome the same and face my fears head-on(quant lol)

Thanks to the plans set by DJ, I gave ample mocks and quizzes to feel confident on my test day. There were strict timelines set by him and he motivated us to follow through.

Even though in my first attempt I have scored a 690, I am confident with DJs help I would be able to improve on this further.

With DJ and my cohorts support, I felt not so alone on this journey. Kudos to egmat for this initiative and to DJ for being a great mentor!

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I started my GMAT journey late January so I had four months to study before my first exam on May 18. On the test date, I went there just to find out that the test center was closed (even though I was receiving all confirmation emails normally), so I rescheduled the test for 2 days later in another location (6 hours away from the city I live in). I took the test and got a 700 (35V, 49Q).

In these first 4 months I studied mainly with MPrep theory for verbal and quant and question bank from OG. My OG mocks were around 710-730 so I expected something closer to 710-720. And after the test, I felt that I had exhausted my study materials and even though I wanted to retake the exam, I didn't know where to begin or where to focus.

So, in early June I contacted eGmat, since I knew my biggest weakness was Verbal. We discussed my test performance (with the ESR) and I went through all the theory through their platform, but now what really changed was not the concepts per se, but how to apply their method (pre-think, don`t skim, etc...) and stick to it. A month later, I took a new mock and got a 750, which got me very excited.

That's when I contacted their Support to make sure I was ready to reschedule the test. In the following 15 days, Ashutosh worked closely with me, providing me guidance on where to focus and reviewing my progress every two days. My main weakness by then was CR, that I needed an extra focus to make sure I was going to excel in the test day. A week before the test I took another mock, which I scored 740. This made me feel confident that was really ready.

I took the test again July 18 and got a 730 (39V, 50Q) and felt so relieved! Now I`m working on the app process.

I can confidently say that eGmat was an exceptional part of my study improvement for two main reasons: (1) the mocks are HARD, but somewhat similar to test day, (2) they go deep into sticking to the method and that was a key differential + their quizzes are great for further practice (specially medium and hard questions, that are tough to find).

The handholding aspect is a must have if you like to study alone, but want some guidance during the process. I really appreciated Ashutosh support and feedback during the process. It gave me an extra energy to keep studying specially during the final days before the test.

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eGMAT’s mentorship programme is, hands down, one of the best products out there. The programme provides you with personalised support from one of eGMAT’s mentors, who will guide you every step of the way to ensure that you keep up with your prep and that you have all it takes to crack the exam.

Let me tell just how this works in real life and how each of the components of the programme translated to my personal case:

• Initial call. I had a call with my Archit Bhargava, my eGMAT mentor, who asked me enough questions to understand how my journey had been until then, what my goals were, and were my strengths and areas for improvement were. It was amazing to see how, by asking the right questions, he could quickly arrive at the key issues that we needed to work on. This call was the base for creating the roadmap we would follow over the following months

• Weekly milestones. Based on our initial call, Archit provided me with an overall roadmap that translated into very concrete, day-specific milestones. What’s great about this milestone-driven plan is that it gives you a very strong sense of direction and accomplishment: you wake up and you know exactly what you need to do, and as you complete the milestones, you get a true sense that you are confidently moving forward. This moves you away from “oh so what should I focus on today? Algebra or Critical Reasoning?” or “I feel I have been studying for long enough now, maybe take a mock?”

• Weekly touch base. Every week, my mentor would reach out to ask the status of my milestones, and we would iterate to adjust the plan for the next week, calibrating for new developments, availability and goals. My particular situation was that work was quite unpredictable at times, so the fact that we iterated and readjusted the plan on a weekly basis was great for me – just what I needed to keep moving at an optimum pace

• Strategy Hurdle sessions. Once every 2-3 weeks, we would do a one-hour session with other members of the programme and our mentor. In those sessions, we would go over issues that go beyond the actual content, but that definitely add up to your overall performance: key pitfalls students find along their GMAT prep journey and how to overcome them, time management during the exam, how to balance between a demanding personal and work life and the need to study consistently, and so on. These sessions were great in that we were presented with real life examples of other people (who I could definitely relate to more than once), and we got the chance to share with others who were going through the same situation as us

• Individual calls. We conducted individual calls with my mentor as we saw fit. In these calls, we discussed the overall status of the prep, any roadblocks I was finding, and potential solutions to overcome them. Whatever the topic of the discussion, the fundamental principle was this: “how do we adjust the plan so that your prep is advancing, effective, and sustainable?”. Basically, we looked for ways to keep moving forward and avoid being stagnated, ensuring that what we did actually allowed me to learn what I needed to learn, and that the pace was sustainable given other areas of my life (for example, work)

Overall, a great opportunity to learn in a truly personalised way. If you are willing to commit to your prep and invest the time it takes to get your target score, this is really good value for money.

Personally, I am sincerely grateful to eGMAT and the mentoring programme – they were a key part of my being able to move from 620 to 760!

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I would like to start by thanking my mentor Deepak for guiding and supporting me throughout my prep journey with e-GMAT. I do not think that my score of 710 would have been possible without his mentorship.

I started my GMAT prep in Feb 2020 with an aim to take the GMAT by end of April 2020; I figured that a time frame of almost 3 months should be good enough to get a top score. Having been a good student all my life, I really thought that this was an achievable target.

I began my prep by solving all 4 books from Kaplan – including GMAT 800 which is supposed to be a book on advanced-level questions. I found the questions from all books to be quite easy and cruised through all the books in less than a month. Once I had solved all the questions in all the books, I took a Kaplan mock test in which I scored 690. In the following days, I took another couple of mocks and scored 670 and 680. I was not even breaching the 700 mark and needed to change my preparation strategy. But at this point, I realized that I was all out of prep material and would need to buy a new course. By a stroke of luck I came across an e-GMAT webinar, which led me to purchase the entire course.

About 5 days after I started studying from the e-GMAT course I received an email from Deepak asking if I would like to enroll under the mentorship program. Seeing no downside to having a dedicated mentor, I gladly agreed.

Deepak gave me a day-by-day planning of the tasks that I would have to do, every week. These activities could be learning concepts, taking cementing quizzes or taking practice quizzes. In case I encountered any problems, or felt like I needed additional practice of a particular topic, I would shoot an email to Deepak and he would quickly re-work my study plan. It was amazing to have this kind of personal attention for an exam which is mostly self-prep.

While following Deepak’s study plan, I encountered some problems. For my critical reasoning prep, I wasn’t scoring well in quizzes even after spending enough time on the concept files. I wasn’t even able to pre-think, a skill that is quite important to be able to crack the CR section of the GMAT. So I notified Deepak of the issue and immediately he re-worked my study plan to give me more practice for CR.

Another issue was that I felt very fatigued with the prep and Deepak, being the excellent mentor that he is, gave me a confidence boost by reassuring me that I was actually doing well. This may seem trivial but trust me such boosts go a long way.

Deepak also conducted fortnightly strategy huddles in which he would discuss topics pertinent to taking the GMAT. These huddles not only helped me improve my approach to taking the test (for example, better time management), but also helped me interact with members of my cohort, most of whom were in the same boat as I.

I took Deepak’s guidance from April to June 2020 and I was able to take the GMAT within 10 days of my target date.



Test day experience

On the test day, I was mostly confident of my capabilities. I had put in the work so there was no reason to worry. Moreover, I was extremely well-rested and had two 700 or higher scores from my mock tests.

Coming into the test, I had taken 2 mocks from e-GMAT, scoring 750 and 700 respectively. I just chalked off the lower score to disturbances while I was taking the test. In hindsight, I should have taken another test to be sure of my prep level.

My test center was terrible. It was very dirty. There was a carpet which was full of dust. The bathroom was a short walk away from the test room and was also dirty. The air conditioner was not able to cool the room. The test administrator entered the test room a couple of times to try and get the air conditioner to work better, resulting in disturbance while taking the test. The keyboards were not convenient for typing and many times more than one key got pressed when I was writing my essay. The keyboards were also below a certain height - resulting in typing inconvenience. There was a lot of lag in the system as well - after selecting a choice, I would have to wait a few seconds for the radio button to reflect my choice. Finally, there were monkeys right outside the center's main door. This was an extremely poor testing experience for me.

I scored 710 in the exam. Q49, V39, IR 8, AWA 6. I’m mostly happy with the score, but feel like I could’ve scored better in a decent test center.

To conclude, I would like to say that GMAT prep is a marathon and not a sprint. So, please keep enough time for your prep, and even time to re-take the test if necessary. You may do everything right but the wrong test center may also ruin your score. If possible, check out the test center beforehand. Focus on the test-taking strategies rather than trying to get every question right. Sometimes, skipping questions is better for your score than sticking with them. Invest in good prep material. If possible, reach out to your friends who might have taken the GMAT and ask about their experiences with different prep materials.

Shout out to Deepak for being an amazing mentor and friend.

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I started using the E-Gmat online course and realized that with the video content, I need some guidance to proceed on this journey. To my benefit, Egmat reached out to us for the mentorship program looking at the account history and that I have always reached out to the support team for help.
It was one of the best decisions to enroll with E-gmat for the mentorship program as while preparing, you constantly need to know whether the efforts you are putting are going in the right direction or not and the next step from there on. The mentorship program has been highly beneficial for me because of various reasons. Firstly, every week there is a day wise milestone plan made with your mentor basis your current performance and your goal. Having daily milestones is very effective as consistency is the biggest key while preparing for the Gmat exam.
Next, constant feedback is given on every quiz and every test taken. The biggest benefit for me was Dhananjay helping me out analyze my mock tests and point out error on timing, accuracy and sub sections, post analysis of performance of the previous week, the next week plan was chalked out.
Interactions with the cohort and peer learning has been another benefit. With the conducive environment created by Dhananjay, we were all able to share our experiences and help each other out. We also used to have weekly training sessions on different topics to solve common problems such as managing time, mental health, consistency etc.
Finally, Dhananjay was available to guide me all the time. I could reach out to him anytime of the day and he would just ask me to set up a zoom call and connect! For me, the biggest problem while studying GMAT is stress management. My performance throughout the study was excellent but there was always a problem on the test day due to anxiety issues while giving the test. Dhananjay helped me overcome this by making me give tests in harsh conditions (Lesser time for more difficult questions) so that I practice overcoming the panic situations as well.
On the test day, I could see a huge difference in the way I was handling questions and managing time. The idea to focus on meaning based approach in SC and the pre-thinking on CR really helped me solve the questions. I could see a huge difference in my level of preparation and confidence from the previous exam taken. Only because of getting one complete RC passage incorrect in the end, I could not score well on my Verbal section. Nonetheless, Dhananjay helped me start again by focusing only on the weak areas and improving my score further. I am all set now to appear for another exam very soon.

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My GMAT story started in October 2019 with my initial score 520 (Manhattan tests). Following the advice of my friend, I started my prep using MGMAT books. Though I thoroughly went through almost all the books in the collection, diligently doing all exercises, by the end of March 2020 I could not score above 540. Along the way, I also solved a ton of OG questions, almost exhausting the question bank in OG, OG Verbal and OG Quant.

Definitely, something was drastically wrong in my prep and I needed professional help. After analyzing most popular courses and reading a number of debriefs, I decided to stay with E-Gmat.

My journey with E-Gmat started with construction of a study plan for the entire course based on my initial score. What I liked about E-gmat plan is that every GMAT area needs to be covered in sequence. I clearly missed this point in my previous prep, and in a single day I could study Sentence Correction and Algebra, the approach that was obviously wrong. My pleasant surprises with E-gmat did not end at this point and I was admitted to E-Gmat mentorship program, which is basically study assistance by professional live GMAT instructor. Along with study plan developed by the E-gmat system, my mentor, Archit, every week was developing for me a detailed plan for the coming week, in which he stated what exact areas I needed to study and how many hours. Such a structured approach is very motivational and pushes you to study consistently with no pauses. What is more valuable is that Archit analyzed my progress and pointed when I needed to return back and to learn a concept again. Doing so, he made sure that I did not leave spaces in my conceptual understanding.

As for the E-gmat course itself, it is very self-sufficient so that you don’t need any other books or materials. For every topic, it has brilliant videos, which teach all the concepts needed for GMAT. But the best thing was that after learning a concept, you watch a video showing how this concept is used in the context of GMAT like questions and how to solve these questions with a step-by-step guide. Finally, you are offered a quiz to cement your knowledge and skills. Only upon successful solving the quiz, you are allowed to move further. Thus, bit by bit, the course builds your GMAT abilities. Going along the way, I understood that I had had a lot of flaws in my conceptual knowledge and totally wrong approach in application of those concepts.

My study plan was designed for 3 months, from April to June, and on June 17 I took my first attempt. Even though my official mocks showed the result of 700-710 (my target score), I could score only 630. I believe the test center experience played a major role in spoiling my score, since I was required to wear face mask and gloves, which brought a lot of discomfort and distractions. As for the questions, there were pretty similar to official mock tests and E-gmat tests, with the exception of RC passages, which turned out to be more complicated and were all from Humanities, my weakest area.

Right after the test, Archit analyzed my ESR report and immediately designed new study plan for the next 20 days, till the next attempt. This time the plan set forth the task of solving quizzes containing only hard questions and diligent work with the error log. No new learning was needed.
On July 9, in my second attempt I scored 680. Even though, I did not hit my target, I still possess very good chances for enrolling my dream business school, which now depend on other criteria. All in all, I could achieve 140 points improvement within 3 months from end of March (540 – Manhattan mock) to beginning of July (680 – real test).

I would like to express my gratitude to all who stand behind E-gmat project and sincerely thank my mentor, Archit, who was very attentive to my progress and provided with priceless advices along the way. I want to thank Rajat and Payal for creating it all and designing brilliant classes and materials. May your project flourish so that you continue to change life of many many students, who previously struggled with GMAT!

Best regards,
Alexander

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I started my GMAT journey one year ago - July 2019. I just graduated college. I started off using Manhattan Prep's books. I thought studying 2 hours a day from the book and doing the books’ problems were enough but boy was I wrong. I took my first GMAT around November and at that time was shocked at how poorly I did. I knew I needed a new method. I started to take official prep tests and continued on my self studies. I took the GMAT again in March and was also disappointed. I knew that this time I needed help. I have always independently studied for exams during college and so asking for help took me off guard but it was one of the smartest decisions I made to improve my gmat score.
I started to browse gmat club and looked into more resources. As I was looking through gmat club forums I noticed that egmat provided very clear and useful answers to many of these questions. I also signed up for one of e-gmat’s free weekend webinars. I was impressed with the instructors tips and wanted more! I signed up for their emails and luckily was approached by a tutor via email. We scheduled a time to chat and I instantly knew this was the program for me.
I was asked to take a mock test on their platform and on the 1-1 chat I was given a mock diagnosis. It made me realize that succeeding on the GMAT is more than just understanding the tested concepts. Doing well on the GMAT requires strong "procedural" knowledge. It requires time management, mental stamina, and efficient approaches. I learned that conceptual knowledge and procedural knowledge come hand in hand. If you strengthen your conceptual knowledge you are able to make quicker decisions on the GMAT and also strengthen your test taking abilities to complete questions accurately and on time. My biggest weakness on the GMAT was not finishing on time and leaving for example only 5 minutes for 7 questions at the end.
The E-GMAT mentorship program was more than what I could ask for. The mentorship program is organized in a peer group fashion lead by one e-gmat instructor. My instructor was DJ. Once a week DJ and I would chat virtually and discuss what is going well, not going well, and a game plan for that week. Evaluating best next steps, DJ would then send me my milestones for each day of that week. A milestone for example was completing 5-6 sections of the e-gmat course and reaching 80% on the concept questions. These milestones were a game changer. Having a benchmark to measure myself against a) motivated me to complete the necessary daily preparation and b) set me up to challenge myself to higher standards. I also appreciate DJ's patience and encouragement. DJ was always happy to answer my questions and even encouraged me to reach out to him more frequently! He was very responsive and considerate as he would even work later to accommodate our differing time zones. DJ was also very honest with me and I knew he had my best interests in mind. Further, each Sunday the cohort would meet virtually to discuss GMAT strategies. We also had a running whats’app group in which we all would share best practices, questions and solutions. I built relationships with a few of my peers, helping one another with our weak spots.
Overall, the e-gmat mentorship allowed me to effectively tackle the gmat. E-gmat provided me with the peer support to motivate me to stay in the game and the resources to build a strong time management approach and stamina to leverage my conceptually knowledge to do well on the gmat.

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The Mentorship program allowed me to be consistent in my preparation. The GMAT tests on a wide variety of subjects and one can get scattered in their preparation. In fact, I had a GMAT version of FOMO while studying: I would be working on geometry and then think that I need to be working on SC only to open CR guide… it has been helpful to have a trustworthy mentor 1-with good grasp of the content, 2-who can analyze my scores and 3- then suggest a study plan accordingly.
Furthermore, the weekly plans DEFINITELY improved my consistency giving me a checklist to challenge every week, even when it didn’t seem I could pull it off. I did not have to dedicate little time that I had on strategizing my preparation; I would just have to look at my daily tasks and start working. This allowed me to make the most of the e-GMAT resources within the timespan I had to prepare.
The mentorship program also entailed Strategy Huddles (zoom meetings) with themes spanning from motivation, success stories, mental health, work organization, study tips... and we had a Whatsapp group to stay in touch with the cohort, share questions, discuss solutions and encourage & congratulate each other. The community feeling definitely helped.
Finally, my mentor arranged a call the day before the exam for the last min prep, motivation and test-taking strategies.
For all the reasons above, and if you want to make sure you cover all the aspects of GMAT prep, I highly recommend the e-GMAT course & mentorship program.

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