Five GMAT Attempts, Seven Years, One 720: What Actually Got Me There

I sat the GMAT five times. First attempt was 2013. Last one that actually counted was 2020. In between: a deferred application, a move to another country, a pandemic, and a lot of 5am mock tests. This isn't a "how to ace the GMAT" listicle — plenty of those exist and most of them are generic enough that any AI could write them tonight. This is what actually happened, including the parts that didn't work.

Why I deferred in the first place

I took a diagnostic in 2013 and scored 560. Decent starting point, not great. But the more I looked into it, the more I realised something that isn't obvious when you're staring at practice test scores: the GMAT wasn't the actual hurdle. Experience was. Business schools — especially the ones I was aiming for — weight work experience heavily, and I didn't have enough of it yet to make a strong application even with a good score.

So I sat on it. Kept working. Didn't touch a GMAT book for years.

The year everything lined up — for the wrong reasons

I moved to Poland in 2020 to be with my wife. I'd been working for about ten years by then. Then COVID hit, and I couldn't find work in a new country in the middle of a global shutdown. Instead of treating that as dead time, I decided to actually go after the MBA properly. No job, no distractions — six months of full-time grinding.

Where the money actually went (almost nowhere)

I was short on money, so my main resource was the GMAT Club community — and I mean that as a genuine recommendation, not filler. The forums are extremely active, and I earned free subscriptions to Manhattan Prep and a few other paid resources just by placing well in their tournaments. Between that and GMAT's own official practice material, I barely spent anything on prep.

The attempt that nearly broke my confidence

Second real attempt: I was consistently scoring 740+ on practice tests. Walked in expecting something close to that. Scored 670 instead.

What happened: I'd travelled to another city the night before the exam and barely slept. That's it. That's the whole story. Nerves plus no sleep plus an unfamiliar bed, and the real exam room turned out to be a very different beast from a practice test taken calmly at home.

What actually changed between 670 and 720

Not more hours. A different strategy, and a mindset shift I couldn't have faked earlier in the process:

• I knew it was my last shot. A 670 was good enough to apply to UK schools, but not good enough to feel competitive. I needed this attempt to count.
• I stopped spreading effort evenly. Sentence correction and quant were already strengths — I sharpened them further rather than leaving them on autopilot. Reading comprehension was a genuine weakness, but a fixable one, so that's where I put real new effort.
• I let go of critical reasoning. CR was consistently hit-or-miss for me no matter how much I practiced it. Instead of burning more hours chasing a section that wasn't responding to effort, I accepted the inconsistency and focused everywhere else.

That reallocation — double down on strengths, fix the fixable weakness, stop fighting the section that wasn't moving — is what actually pushed the score, not raw additional study time.

Test day, for what it's worth

Stay hydrated. Sleep properly the night before — obvious advice, but the 670 attempt is proof of what happens when you don't. And by the final attempt, the confidence wasn't hope, it was evidence: enough practice tests behind me that walking in didn't feel like a gamble anymore.

What I'd tell 2013-me

Be more structured, earlier. Set objective targets from the start rather than drifting into prep and hoping momentum carries you. I got there eventually, but a clearer target from day one would have saved a few of those years.

This is a personal account of one person's GMAT preparation and does not constitute admissions or test-prep advice. Scores, timelines, and what works varies significantly by person — treat this as one data point, not a formula.