IR

[ket310]

I got so much help from you Stacey, but just one more question with IR.

The Manhattan Prep book says that IR score of 4 and higher should be okay. Does that hold true even nowadays? (the book was written in Dec 2014)

I'm really struggling with IR. My IR scores from three MGMAT CAT have been 0, 5, 3.8 (My total scores are 690, 740, 700 on those three exams). My current strategy is to guess all three MSR and do the rest. I just want to find out that getting around 4-5 is still alright like the book stated. My target schools have GMAT average of 640~680. So I'm good on Quant and Verbal.

[StaceyKoprince]

Schools still aren't using IR very much. What we've been telling people lately is to go for a 5 or better (to beat the average) unless you are planning to apply to one of the big management consulting firms. In that case, you want to go for a 7 or an 8. At least some of them are asking for IR scores.

Also, our IR is harder than the real thing. Anecdotally, it's been my experience that most of my students are scoring a couple of points higher on the real test. So your 4 and 5 should be just fine. (The 0 was the first time? If so, then don't worry about that. If it was the most recent one, then go back and try to figure out why that score dropped so much.)

Good luck - let us know how it goes!

[ket310]

Thank you very much!

Yes, the first one was 0 (with zero preparation, I just didn't know what to do). Last week, I took CAT 4 and got 4.4. So on my last three, I'm averaging 4.5 on MGMAT CATs.

I'm not aiming for consulting at all. I'm applying to master of accounting programs and aiming for Big 4 accounting firms staff positions. The schools I'm applying to have average from 640 to 680. Thank you very much for your advice.

[ket310]

I took GMAT today and got awesome result! (unofficial, obviously)

IR 6/67%
Q 50/87%
V 38/85%
T 720/94%

Thank you very much Stacey for all your help with many of my questions! Now, time to write the essays (last piece in my application)

[StaceyKoprince]

Wow - that's fantastic! Congratulations - I'm really happy for you.

Great work! Let us know how applications go and good luck!