Hi fellow members,

You have all provided me with some valuable tips and suggestions that have helped me in taking important decisions. Today I seek guidance from all of you once more.

When I scored 560 (Q44 V26) in my third attempt back in November 2017, I asked my peers, colleagues and you guys about what step should I take next. The general consensus was, and I also agreed with it, that I should not throw in the towel and go for the 4th attempt, especially because since my quant score was low and I needed to improve it. So I made mental maps for SC, CR, RC by combining all the materials and lessons that I have acquired from studying with almost all of the GMAT prep firms: Empower GMAT (3 months), The Economist (3 months), E-gmat (6 months), and Manhattan. For Quant, I decided to trust one more prep firm, since I didn't have a good experience with any of the online prep courses that I have listed above, for my 4th attempt. So I decided to try out Math-Revolution and believe me this was the best course that has helped me tremendously as I scored 46 in quant in my 4th attempt. But however, my score dropped by 10 points. I ended up scoring 550 (Q46, V20).

Now I have been preparing for the GMAT for 2 years and I have tried all the courses. For my first, I studied with the Economist. For my second attempt, I studied with Empower GMAT, for third I studied with E-gmat (for verbal) and Manhattan (for quant). And for the fourth attempt, I continued my verbal prep with E-gmat (since I managed to pick my verbal score from V19 in 2nd attempt to V26 in 3rd attempt) and enrolled in Math-Revolution course for quant. I have practiced Mock exams over and over again: Official GMAT prep exam packs, Manhattan 6 exams and Kaplan exams. In fact while I was practicing mock tests for my 4th attempt, I did manage to score from 640-710, believe it or not. But obviously I have to pause at least 4 times per each section in the mock couple of times to rest my eyes and calm my mind.

Now, I feel that I simply don't have what it takes to ace the GMAT. Even 600+ would have been a decent score I can't even cross 590 bar. I have spent 2 years trying to ace the GMAT but I can no longer waste any more time. I need to apply to good business at some stage. I need to move on.

So my dear friends, what shall I do now. The schools that I want to apply to are UBC, Cornell, Mannheim, Carnegie Mellon, HHL Leipzig, HEC, Bocconi, Kelly, IMD.

My questions are:

1) If I am not destined to get admitted to any good MBA program, with good future returns, with that awful score, can I apply to these school's specialized business programs?

2) Can I apply for specialized business programs, such as entrepreneurship, global business, masters in management offered by these schools now and in the mean time I can prepare for GRE?

3) Do I even consider taking the GRE test?

4) How much time does it take to prepare for the GRE, given that I have already spent 2 years preparing for GMAT and given the fact that GRE's quant is easier that GMAT's and I have recently scored 46 in GMAT quant.

My overall goal is to do an MBA from top school but with these scores i need to put those goals aside. What are logical steps that I need to take? I wanted to apply in the third round for European and Canadian Universities.

Please help me,

your fellow member in distress,
Taha