Hola amigos,

After my last topic, the good and BAD in Facebook, I would lie to draw your attention to a new subject, the GMAT exam.

For most of my readers, that was one step and rather big on their path to IE. It is no secret that recommendation letters, essays and CV are relatively easy to prepare for the admission committee, something you definitely cannot say about the GMAT.

A friend once told me that he sees himself as a different person before and after the exam, and not because of his result, which was "very satisfying", but mainly due to the fact the preparations made him completely nuts.

So do we really need that test? Isn't there any other measurement tool, which can give us a good estimation on the person's qualities rather than how he would react in a life threatening situation (because let's be honest, in high percent of the test takers, vital signs are pretty similar to those of a person dismantling a nuclear bomb – pulse: 170, heart rate: 220 and two liters of pure sweat running down the face). I am not saying lets eliminate the test completely, because it probably has some value but weighing it higher than the personal interview?! Please, MBA students, to my humble opinion, should be more than just a number, especially in a school like IE, where one must express himself and be a team player throughout the year, and with all the respect to the letters and essays, they are much less effective than personal evaluation – where no one can do the job for you…

I am guessing that all of you who got a good grade will say it’s a great tool but don’t you think that if you really want to give someone a test (which I am positive that the GMAC, the wonderful organization which came up with the idea, is regretting for not registering it in the patent office as a 20^th century mental torturing device), you should give him an ideal environment, without a guy who is coughing his lungs out next to you, a girl who tries to make sure everyone around her can hear she is alive by breathing like Darth Vader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader ,and an examiner who secretly wishes to turn you all into Popsicle with a bladder in the size of a tee-bag by setting the AC on 16 degrees. All those can really affect your score, and even after 4 grueling months of studying and preparing yourself, you can still find out that perhaps not all is up to you.

* Based on true stories, which happen to fake people

Until next time,

YV