Communications Consultant Scores a 70 point Jump in GMAT, Gets Admitted to Yale MBA

Before taking the plunge to do an MBA two years ago, Matt worked in communications consulting. He started by teaching himself the basics of the GMAT and applied to a few schools before he got in touch with us at Sam Weeks Consulting. 

We went through his complete application life cycle, step-by-step. Matt started by working with Rowan Hand on his GMAT and scoring a major 70 point jump in his GMAT score. He then reached out to Sam to navigate the application process, leading to admits to top business schools like Yale, IESE, and LBS (the latter two with scholarships!).

To learn more about Matt’s 2 year long step-by-step application journey, his experience working with a GMAT tutor to improve his score significantly, and choosing the right b-school, we sat down with Matt and Rowan for an insightful Q&A. 

Watch the full interview here:

Q. Tell us about your MBA application timeline.

Matt:  I’ll take you through a brief journey.

So I started off doing the GMAT in February-March 2023. I had a go at doing some learning about the GMAT, getting to grips with its format, did all sorts of self-study on the platform, and finally sat the exam in May. I got a 660, which was fine, but not good enough for the schools I wanted to go to.

So then I spoke to Rowan, and we worked together on an ad-hoc basis across June-July. I resat the GMAT in August and saw a big transformation. I scored a 730. 

But then I had to go straight into Round 1 applications. Having done the GMAT in August, going into applications right away was pretty tight. Too tight, even. I applied to four top US schools - Harvard, Wharton, Columbia, and MIT Sloan. I didn’t get an interview for any of them!

That was when I reached out to Sam. We talked about why I got dinged, and where my original essays needed to be leveled up. 

Towards the end of October, we began talking about which schools I wanted to apply to next, my essay progress, and did some more discovery work around my background, like how my communications background would fit into an MBA. 

We then applied for five schools - two European, and three American. Specifically, Yale, NYU, Chicago Booth, IESE, and LBS.

I got interviews for all five, so kudos to Sam on that one!

I was waitlisted at NYU and Booth, but didn’t get through. I was admitted to Yale, IESE, and LBS, with scholarships for the latter two.

So a long journey, but a good journey.

Q. What triggered you to hire a GMAT tutor?

Sam: How did you identify that it’s time to call in some help, especially for the GMAT?

Matt: Getting help from a tutor for the GMAT was a lot more straightforward, as it’s less of a subjective process compared to school interviews and admits.

I come from a communications background, which is very language-based. I studied languages at university, and was quite happy working with linguistics and verbal concepts. So the verbal side of GMAT was never really a problem. And we didn't do a huge amount of work on the verbal section of the GMAT throughout the process.

But I studied A-level Math in the UK system, which is pretty much all the math you would need for the GMAT. The problem was that while I could solve the math problems on the GMAT, I couldn’t do them fast enough. 

I sat for the original GMAT, which meant 31 Math questions. I had to make sure I didn’t get stuck on difficult questions and spend a lot of time getting them right.

So after doing the first test in May and seeing the relative percentage scores, my verbal percentage score was very high but the quant percentage was low, maybe in the 35-40 percentile. It was clear where the problem was. 

Sam: Rowan, is that how most of your clients think, and then come to you?

Rowan: Well, it depends from person to person in a lot of ways.

Matt's a good example of a real self-starter, somebody who has a plan and understands where that third-party assistance might actually fit in, as opposed to needing more of a strict curriculum.

In terms of diagnostics, there are sets of questions I use to see where someone may be inefficient or where there’s a gap in the foundations. For Matt, it wasn’t about foundational gaps, but technique and efficiency. 

Once we discussed that, and he used the large library of notes that I give clients, he showed a lot of improvement. That’s not necessarily the normal process for everyone; some may prefer to work a bit more closely and have a bit more hand-holding, which is totally OK.

But what I do find is that the people who end up scoring the best, around 720+, start out by trying to understand the way that the questions are formulated as well, and getting into the mind of the people who set them. They ask high-level questions instead of just going over the curriculum over and over. Ultimately, these questions are set up to test very individual concepts, sometimes in combination. Identifying that while reading the question is really crucial. What do they want? What’s the punchline? What is the author of the question actually trying to get you to do?

So you have to determine as quickly as possible what that concept is if you're going to solve it.

Q. With your mother tongue being English, how did you handle the verbal side of the test?

Matt: What I remember most about the verbal side is when we were doing sentence correction. The key was to remember that they weren’t looking for the most aesthetically pleasing sentence or something I would have aimed for in a communications role.  

But really, you've been given five options, and you're looking for the least bad option. And it's just about striking off.

That background was very helpful in terms of grouping sets. There’s normally a grouping of 3 and 2 answers, where you can strike off two options because they've used a structure that just doesn't make any sense or whose syntax doesn't quite track.

More generally, looking for the “least bad” answer is a common concept in multiple choice tests, whether it’s the GMAT, GRE, or SATs. These tests are typically sophisticated multiple choice tests. Which means three or four tempting answers, plus one “not wrong” answer. In the industry, they’re called distractors. Answers that look good for some reason. And the nice shiny objects, the ones that look good, are what you need to avoid because there's something objectively wrong with them. And the one that's left, the one that's “not wrong”, is often not the most appealing answer. 

It was trickier in some ways for people who have a very good level of English because they feel uncomfortable ticking a sentence that they would never hear or say, because it's quite counterintuitive. That’s how the test makers tempt native English speakers into messing up.

So we did use these kinds of tricks and tips on the verbal section. 

The other two parts of the verbal test, like reading and critical thinking, use a more deep reasoning structure where there may be a bit of friction between native and non-native speakers. That doesn't mean it's necessarily harder for non-natives, because I've found that the people that score the highest in the verbal section are sometimes not native. They’ve learned English from a textbook, so they have a more formal understanding of the language. 

So I don't want to perpetuate any myths here, because I don't think it's necessarily harder for non-natives, but it might be different nevertheless. It’s not just about presenting your answers in English, but approaching them from a linguistic lens. 

And I was probably quite lucky to have the best of both worlds in terms of having done a decent number of foreign languages and studied structural analyses of language.

Q. What were you looking for in a GMAT tutor? 

Matt: I lucked out! Rowan was the first GMAT tutor I met, and we worked very well together. I remember looking at his website and thinking that I wanted something a bit more independent. I wanted to work with someone who wasn’t the cookie-cutter, “here’s a GMAT book, go and learn” person. 

It was clear that Rowan was able to understand and pinpoint the issues with my GMAT attempt very specifically, rather than simply say “we’ll get you a better GMAT score”. Throughout the testing process, I was able to go into the kind of detail that I had needed to improve. 

Sam: Rowan, when you meet a client, how do you know you’re going to work well together?

Rowan: The first thing I require is that people speak to me before we meet up! It’s not just about booking a time and showing up on a Zoom call. I need to have a detailed introductory consultation, ask what they have done in the process, their knowledge about the exam, and what their goals and expectations are. 

So someone like Matt, who came in with a 660 and was aiming for 720+, I understood early that it was pretty reasonable for us to achieve within a relatively short window. In the end, it took us less than three months. 

Q. When is the right time to reach out to a GMAT tutor?

Rowan: It’s best to start early, and to do some research on your own. Now, I don't mean GMAT Club (it can be useful for certain things, but use it with caution). Instead, read up on basic literature about what the exam is, try some practice questions, and potentially even try a practice exam. That's all helpful data, particularly during a consultation.

Buy an official guide. You can get one on Amazon! Learn what the test is asking you to do. Understand what the topics are, how the questions are phrased, what math and verbal concepts are being tested, and then how those are combined in the data insights section.

I would suggest having a broad overview, before approaching a tutor. That makes the consultation easier.

Ideally, the most prepared candidate is someone who has done the exam at least once and has hit a score that is OK, but they know they can do better. Then, we know exactly where the leverage points are and set out achievable goals for them to get the next score.

Sam: For Matt, who went from 660 to 730, a 70 point jump is massive, right? Is that to be expected?

Rowan: It is somewhat exceptional! Looking at the GMAT Classic, you have these sort of score plateaus where scores within a reasonable range of each other are roughly the same. And then 710 to 740 is similar, too. That 30 point gap is essentially one standard deviation on the exam. What that means is - depending on how many cups of coffee you've had that day, you're gonna get a score that’s higher or lower.

In Matt’s case, 660 is slightly under the bar. Someone would have to take the exam twice to get a 690-700, something in the middle, and then knuckle down for two-four more weeks of study to get the 730. So, to make that leap in one go is impressive. 

Matt: And scoring a 660 spurred me to getting a tutor, because that was when I said to myself, “I know that it definitely can be better than this”. And rather than just study up and try to get a slightly better score by myself, I thought I should do it properly with a tutor and go into applications with the best possible score.

Q. So sidebar: how many cups of coffee should you have?

Rowan: Strike a balance. You don’t want to be sitting there tapping your foot and getting jittery in the middle of the exam! You want to be at a point where you can lock in and focus over the span of the exam. 

And it can be pretty grueling. Three hours of concentrating, where you might get a 5-10 minute break. It’s mentally draining, and I would not have been able to go back to work the same day I’d done one!

Matt: I was nearly very late for the test I took in August because I got stuck at work, and I reached the test center 5 minutes before the exam began. I got an earful from one of the administrators when I got there. 

Rowan: And it’s amazing what can throw people off their test. Could be a bad run-in with the administrators, or a mild cold, or work. And the most grueling thing is getting your result immediately after, without that breather you usually get after big exams. It can be very clinical, but it’s better than waiting! 

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Q. How did you choose between European and US schools? What were your priorities?

Matt: Coming from a European background, I hadn't really considered any European schools to start with in my first application round. Generally, the advice I was given is to apply to US b-schools to have better employability. Obviously, some schools like INSEAD are pretty pan-European in terms of appeal. And likewise, if you’re in London and you’ve gone to LBS, you’ll be safe. 

As you start to go down the European school rankings, the relative notoriety of these schools goes down. But if you’re giving out your resume and the recruiters recognize the school you went to, you’re in a better place.  

So in the second round, I wanted to apply to some top ranked European schools to be my fallback. And that was the basis of my first few conversations with Sam, to cement my school approach. 

Q. What stood out about Yale?

Matt: Point one, strong alumni interaction. One of my former work colleagues who did his undergrad at Yale put me in touch with a guy who went to the Yale School of Management. I had a chat with him before my Yale interview. And not only was he a really nice guy, he gave me a very good account of the school and its culture and the teaching there. 

And Sam told me to talk to alumni or current students because it gives you a chance to bring it up in the interview, and it also means that you'll be informed on what to expect.

Point two, Yale combines the case system and data-led teaching system. They have what they call raw cases; Instead of giving you a PDF with all the information, like in the case method, or large chunks of raw data as you might get on the other end of the spectrum, they give you a bit of a mixture. And you have to combine those pieces of information in a real world context because you're not going to get everything formatted nicely in a business context. That felt more real for me, that it tried to replicate the real world as far as possible. 

And point three, I really liked my interviewer for Yale! We got on well and there was a lot of back and forth, which makes a big difference in an interview. So weirdly enough, the interview itself was a highlight that made me feel better about choosing Yale. 

Sam: That’s a very common point that can drive your choice of schools: where did you have the most pleasant interview? Schools need to be aware that applicant's interviewing the interviewer as well. It’s like with jobs – if you have a horrible interview experience with somebody who is maybe going to be your boss and they're clearly nasty, you don't want to take that job.

Q. What were some of the other interesting interview experiences you had?

Matt: In my interviews, I found it made a big difference whether I was interviewed by an alumnus or by a member of the admissions committee.

I had one interview with an admissions committee member, which I really enjoyed. It was a positive experience, very chatty and relaxing. That may have been because I had admits to other schools by that point! So I was freaking out less. 

But on the other end of the spectrum, not all alumni interviews are good. I had one with an alumnus at 5pm after I finished work. It was just one of those moments where you feel like you're having a one-way conversation. I expected them to talk about their experience, but it didn’t happen! 

And especially when you're coming out of a long work day, and they've come out of a long interviewing day, you’re both not necessarily in the right headspace. And you can’t find common ground with them. And for that school, I got dinged, and wasn’t that unhappy about it in the end. 

Sam: I can provide a bit of insight on this. You got five out of five interviews, and three out of five admits. That's a higher than average conversion rate (roughly 50% of interviews convert to offers across all schools).

That's something that people should embrace, because that's almost self-selecting in terms of where you're going to see the best school fit and where you’re going to have the best two years ahead. Apply to enough schools and let that work in your favor! So I advise clients to apply to five or six schools and then they get offers from two or three of them.

Q. As a British national, can you walk us through the Visa process for US based schools?

Matt: You get a lot of help from the school. They’re used to international students. For example, Yale has its own Office of International Students and Scholars and they guide you through the process and give you plenty of material to facilitate that. 

Fundamentally, for the US, universities do an extensive background check on all of their students. That’s because to get an F1 student Visa, you must be supported by the institution that is bringing you.

And as a result, the Visa process is a lot easier when it comes to interviews and getting that sticker in your passport. It takes a bit of pressure off the State Department when it comes to that kind of engagement with you.

I only started on my Visa process after I had confirmation of my admit from Yale SOM and accepted that offer. By that time, the background checks had been completed. They do take a long time depending on the service they use; I was admitted at the end of March, and background checks didn't pass until the end of May. 

At the end of May, I had to fill in a load of forms called the DS-160 and provide proof that I could pay for the MBA. So it’s hard work, but you are walked through it well by the university, they take the burden off the immigration service and you turn up for an interview. For the UK, it was a three-stage interview which took about two hours at the embassy. I received my visa two days later.

Q. Communications consulting is not a common pre-MBA field. Why did you feel like you need an MBA for your career growth? 

Matt: Yeah, the only people with MBAs in the comms industry I’ve seen tended to be people who came straight back and took more solid roles in running the business or being in a more commercial environment among their peers.

Working in communications consulting for big blue chip companies, I interviewed a lot of board members and C-suite professionals and worked with them on communication strategies at a reasonably high level. These are critical business issues I was advising on. But sometimes when it got to the stage of making a high-impact commercial decision, I felt sidelined. I wanted to move on from that role and get into the weeds of how businesses are making money, how they create value for shareholders, and all the nuts and bolts, whether it's product or operations.

And to do that, I knew I needed to get a more commercial grounding. That’s where the MBA made sense.

Q. Tell us what it was like working with an admissions consultant on your MBA applications.

Matt: We started with a 5 hour package and ended up with a couple of extra hours and mock interviews to finalize things. Even around New Year’s. 

And it was very “dive-in” and dialogue based. The time we spent together was essentially to discuss what we were going to write about. The actual edits and essay-writing happened outside of those hours! So it’s not just strictly what we do on call, but all the back and forth that happens outside. 

Sam: Yes, we do that with all hourly packages. Between meetings with your consultant, you get live editing and conversations by email (or even Whatsapp, if necessary). So the actual process ends up being much more than just five hours of your consultant's time.

Q. What advice would you give to other MBA applicants?

Matt: First, understand that it’s going to be a long and expensive process. You have to really want it. Think about the returns you're getting out of the MBA and what you need to put into it, and consider admissions consulting to improve your application. It will likely reward you in the end in terms of where you get to and how you approach your MBA. I also got two scholarships for the European schools I was admitted to. Remember, if the schools want you, you won’t have to pay the full fee.

Second, plan your timing. I probably applied too quickly in Round 1. Doing your GMAT in August and trying to apply in R1 right after is not something I would advise! 

Plan your timeline out, and go all-in. Applying to multiple schools is a lot of writing. And if you haven’t got a GMAT already, consider R2. Take the test in September-October, maybe even November, and then apply for the second round. The difference is negligible between the two rounds. 

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