By: Michael Noltemeyer, North Star Editing

Writing an application is like being trapped in a choose-your-own-adventure story that someone else is reading: your fate lies in the hands of your audience.

Problem is, most applicants don’t understand what their audience wants.

I don’t make that claim lightly. Over the last ten years, I’ve read literally thousands of personal statements and statements of purpose and everything in between.

That’s why I’m confident when I say you’re probably making at least one of these three mistakes I see on almost every essay that comes my way.

1. Thinking Your Essays Don’t Matter

Consider these figures from 2017:

Competition for Ivy League spots is so fierce that Harvard, Yale, and Stanford could each rescind their offers of admission to every student they have already accepted, choose another freshman class of the same size, and suffer no statistical drop-off.

In fact, they could probably do that...

When studying for the GMAT or GRE, it's easy to ask yourself: "When will I ever use this in the real world?"

So let's have a little fun.

On Saturday, June 8th, will be the 151st running of the Belmont Stakes, the third of three famous horse races that comprise the famed Triple Crown of horse racing. This year there isn't a horse with a chance of winning the Triple Crown, as two different horses won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes leading up to this weekend's race. But it's still going to be a field boasting lots of talent, and it's incredible watching those majestic animals run full-tilt with a combination of such power and elegance.

But I digress....

So what does all of this have to do with the GMAT and GRE?

Betting. Odds. Probability.

As you've no-doubt discovered, probability is one of the math topics tested on the quantitative section of both the GMAT and GRE. So why not apply what you're learning to a real-world example?

Specifically, there are six common wagers bettors...

Number Properties (aka Number Theory) have been increasingly tested on the GMAT in recent years, and there are a wide range of question types that fall into this category that you need to be prepared for on test day.

To help you build a strong theoretical foundation -- as well as equip you with time-saving strategies and how-to's -- so that you can answer any number properties question the GMAT throws at you, we're hosting a free class on Wednesday, May 15 at 1:00pm EST (10am Pacific) where we'll break it all down for you.

If you're serious about getting more right answers on these challenging question types so that you can boost your GMAT quant score, reserve your spot now and join us next Wednesday.

Here are the details for your calendar:

WHAT: How to Dominate Tricky GMAT Number Properties Questions {Free Webinar}
DATE: Wednesday, May 15, 2019
TIME: 1:00 - 2:00pm Eastern Time U.S. (12pm CST, 11am MST, 10am Pacific)
PRESENTER: Brett Ethridge, Lead GMAT Instructor, Dominate Test Prep
...

Earlier this week we hosted a free webinar on Time Management, Speed Reading, and Anxiety Relief with special guest trainer Bara Sapir of City Test Prep. If you missed it, the recording is above.

We are pleased to announce that we have worked out and exclusive deal with Bara to offer anyone affiliated with Dominate Test Prep a $50 discount on any one of her upcoming online MindFlow Speed Reading clinics!

To learn more and take advantage of this special offer, visit https://citytestprep.com/product/mindflow-workshop/ and enter the following coupon code at checkout: 50discount.

For the past 13 years, Bara has taught MindFlow, a game-changer workshop that teaches participants to read up to 5x faster -- without compromising comprehension. Increased speed and accuracy translates to test-takers gaining more time to answer questions and consistently score higher on the GMAT, GRE, LSAT, SAT, ACT, and MCAT. In fact, Bar's techniques lead to a 13% average score increase in your...

Would you agree that if you could increase your reading speed, it would help you immensely on whichever standardized test you're taking?

Of course it would. 

Reading faster will help you on reading comprehension questions, obviously. It will also help you with your overall time management. Timing issues are one of the top concerns my students have when they first come to me, and reading faster is one of the strategies for improving that.

And even after test day, think about how useful it would be in graduate school to be able to get through the countless pages of text you're expect to read in less time -- and still understand what you're reading!

Fortunately, there are a handful of easy-to-learn techniques that will enable you to increase your reading speed without losing comprehension -- and we're going to teach them to you in a free webinar we're hosting on Tuesday, February 5th, at 1:00pm Eastern Time U.S. (10am PST).

Lock in your spot NOW so that you...

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

You've been studying like crazy for your standardized test (whether SAT, ACT, GMAT, or GRE), and you feel like you've brushed up on all of the key concepts that are supposedly tested. But then you go to take your first practice test (or worse, the real thing) and, uh-oh!, you encounter some questions that you simply haven't seen before.

Panic sets in, and you wonder whether all that preparation was for naught.

Now you're confused. What did I miss? Did my tutor / prep course steer me wrong? Do I need to seek out new books that may have some of these "missing" practice questions in them? Will I ever be able to get the score I need?

Truth be told, you probably haven't missed anything. I'm sure your prep course or tutor didn't overlook any major topics, and that book you've been studying from almost certainly includes all of the major content areas you can expect to see on test day.

So what went wrong?

More likely than not, you simply haven't...

There's a quote attributed to the famous Renaissance artist Michaelangelo, supposedly in response to a fan who asked Michaelangelo how he was able to sculpt such a masterpiece in "David" out of a formless block of marble, that goes as follows:

"[Sculpting David] is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David."

Whether that's an actual Michaelangelo quote or not, I like the sentiment -- and it applies perfectly to certain question types that you make encounter on the GMAT or GRE.

The Complement Rule of Probability

You may remember the complement rule of probability that states,

probability (something) = 1 - probability (not something)

In other words, probabilities must sum to 100%, so if the probability of something happening is 60%, for example, then the probability of that thing not happening is 40% (1 - .60 = .40). Pretty straightforward.

Now as I explain in the probability lessons of my GMAT and GRE courses, this formula is particularly helpful on hard...

What are factorials?

Factorials are among the more advanced math topics you'll be expected to know on the GMAT or GRE, especially if you're shooting for a high score. They most commonly come up in what I call "counting" questions (the "how many ways...?" questions that involve combinations and permutations), but you may see factorials tested individually as well.

You recognize a factorial by the exclamation point "!" after a number, and that mathematical notation simply tells you to multiply every integer in decreasing order starting with the number before the exclamation point and stopping at one (1). 

For example, 8! (read "eight factorial") = 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 = 40,320.

Advanced Factorial Example + Strategy

As you can see, factorials can get pretty big! And in fact, you very rarely actually need to multiply out all of the numbers to solve problems involving factorials on your exam. The numbers can get too large for the built-in calculator on the GRE, and you don't even have...

You've no doubt heard the adage that "practice makes perfect." But that's not necessarily true. I prefer the legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi's variation that goes, "Perfect practice makes perfect."

You see, how you practice and prepare for your exam matters. I want to shed some light on that for you so that you're able to maximize your study time. In fact, if you internalize and take action on the three tips I'm going to share with you, you'll be able to get more right answers on test day without having to put in a lot of extra hours. Time is valuable, so why spend more of it preparing for your exam than absolutely necessary?

Okay, let's dive in.

A Tale of Two Candidates

Consider the following two hypothetical students studying for their respective exams.

Candidate A: Studies for 100 hours.

Candidate B: Studies for 80 hours.

Which student do you think is likely to get a higher score?

It's a trick question. On the surface, it seems like Candidate A is the obvious...

CentreCourt MBA Festival is launching a webinar series ahead of the Admissions Festival for 2018. The second of the 3-part series will take place on Wednesday, January 24th, 2018 on the topic of "Specializations in MBA Programs."

Join us for a 30 minute webinar with John A. Byrne, founder and editor-in-chief of Poets&Quants, and Matt Symonds, co-founder and director of Fortuna Admissions, as they discuss the characteristics of each MBA Specialization. Stay for the last 10 minutes for a Q&A with Matt and John.

WHAT: Specializations in an MBA Program - Free Webinar
DATE: Wednesday, January 24, 2018
TIME: 7:00pm London Time (2:00pm EST U.S.)
REGISTER: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SdOI_t3hS7Ku2EUqm3UJtg