Camp - November Edition

GMAT Bootcamp in November
Date: 19th & 16th of December 2006

Venue:
Harsha Hotel & Convention Center,
Park Road, Bangalore - 560001
Phone : +91-80-22865555/66
(3-star hotel about 2kms from MGRoad and not hard to find)

Schedule of bootcamp:

9th December (Saturday)

9:30am - 10am: GMAT Introduction (with tea/snacks)

10:00am - 11:30pm: CR-1 (CR fundamentals)

11:30pm - 1:00pm: RC-1 (Reading technique)

1:30pm - 4:00pm SC - 1 (SC fundamentals & rules)

4:00- 5:00pm: RC-2 (Answering techniques)

5:00 - 6:30pm: CR-2 (Practice for 2/3rd of GMAT CR questions)

16th December (Saturday)

9:00am - 11:00am: CR-2 (Focussing on advanced concepts - what to expect on 700+)

11:0am - 1:30pm: SC-2 (Advanced concepts including test strategies and flashcards)

1:30pm - 2pm: Lunch

2:00pm - 4:00pm: RC-2 (How to answer without understanding everything)

4:00pm onwards: Diagnostic Test & review answers

Post Camp:

This contact program is followed by a period of mentorship from our side till you take your GMAT. This includes an exlusive email id to send your queries plus option of having a personal session with the experts anytime till you take the test.

Registration: Please call on 9886212835/9886241819 to confirm your participation. Alternately, hit the enquiry link on www.crackverbal.com and someone will get back to you.

Cost: Rs.3000/- paid at time of registration. This all inclusive for the entire program- taxes, food, class handouts etc.

New Website up & running

Finally, I got it done. A new website has been up & running for somedays now. The url is:

www.crackverbal.com

Please let me know your comments/feedback once you have a look at it.

I know there are many points to improve upon. But to give a background I got it done in less than 3hours - coming up with a name, registration of the domain name, building the site, getting server space, creating email ids, typing out the content and finally publishing it.

Before you hit upon any conclusion regarding my ingenuity and start passing undeserved compliments let me tell you that I had started my own business in 1997 - making webpages. I would like to call 1997 - as the pre-google era. With limited bandwidth and arcane UIs we struggled hard writing HTML and JavaScript codes into textpads before previewing it on Netscape (yep! IE still had just a 5% market share). There were infact no good resources and I relied heavily on a kind soul called Joe Barta, who among technical stuff also taught me how to make things simple and interesting. (www.pagetutor.com). I even started a company - www.eximlookup.com. In those days, businessplans would come up on the back of a paper-napkin and companies would start out overnight. Unfortunately for all the enthusiasm and energy I had, I lacked skills which on hindsight were more important than knowing HTML.

Which brings me to my other part - what is happening with the GMAT Verbal Bootcamp? To put it in a nut-shell - Everything under control. I probably bring in a lot more in terms of perspective, teaching experience, people management, marketing and most importantly gumption & chutzpah 10years after my first failed venture. And it shows! I have had about 22 students so far. One of the faculties has got an admit to Darden. And more importantly I see more enquiries flowing in then when I started of.

I will use this blog from now on to write more thoughts than to focus just on publicizing the GMAT Bootcamp. I am sure a lot of you might be happy to hear that.

GMAT Bootcamp in November

Date: 12th & 19th of November 2006

Venue:
Harsha Hotel & Convention Center,
Park Road, Bangalore - 560001
Phone : +91-80-22865555/66
(3-star hotel about 2kms from MGRoad and not hard to find)

Schedule of bootcamp:

12th November (Sunday)

9:00am onwards: Diagnostic Verbal

9:30am - 10am: GMAT Introduction (with tea/snacks)

10:00am - 1:00pm: CR-1 (Strong fundamentals to crack 2/3rd of CR questions on the GMAT)

1:00pm - 1:30pm: Lunch

1:30pm - 4:00pm SC - 1 (Power-packed foundation session covering concepts & strategies)

4:00- 6:00pm: RC-1 (How to understand without reading everything, advanced reading techniques)

19th November (Sunday)

9:00am - 11:00am: CR-2 (Focussing on advanced concepts - what to expect on 700+)

11:0am - 1:30pm: SC-2 (Advanced concepts including test strategies and flashcards)

1:30pm - 2pm: Lunch

2:00pm - 4:00pm: RC-2 (How to answer without understanding everything)

4:00pm onwards: Diagnostic Test 2 & review answers

Post Camp:

This contact program is followed by a period of mentorship from our side till you take your GMAT. This includes an exlusive email id to send your queries plus option of having a personal session with the experts anytime till you take the test.

Registration: Please call on 9886212835/9886241819 to confirm your participation. Alternately, drop a mail at gmatbootcamp[AT]gmail.com with your contact details.

Cost: Rs.3000/- paid at time of registration. This all inclusive for the entire program- taxes, food, class handouts etc.

Some pictures from the bootcamp

Some pictures from the class on 8th Oct (psst....thats me teaching ;)

Bootcamp DAY 1

Day 1 got over yesterday. I was very pleased overall with the way it went. Spending 11hours inside a room with 10 other people helped in forging a personal bond. It is exciting to actually see people who I had spoken to earlier on the phone. Nice to put a picture on a name.

Harsha hotel (Tiger Trails) seems to be a very nice place - everything was arranged when I came in the morning including bottles of water and a jar of mints on each seat. It had a nice U-shaped arrangement around the whiteboard. Nice huge white-boards and markers of different colors. Something the consultant in me loved. I am known for impressive white-boarding skills ;)

There was some shuffle in the plan. We started off with CR - a marathon 4-hour session taken by yours truely. We spent almost 2 hours focussing on the basics - looking just at stimulus and figuring out the conclusion, premise and assumption AND diagramming. The next 2 hours we did close to 2 dozen questions practising the concepts on actual application - "real" GMAT questions on Find assumption/conclusion, strengthen/weaken arguments.

We broke for lunch at 2pm, a good 1-hour off schedule. Lunch was served in the same board room. Not bad but not sure it's 3-star quality.

Post-lunch session was SC. An unconventional way to approach it - we never discussed the rules of grammar. That is for day 2. Rohit Dhingra (GMAT - 740) took the session focussing more on stuff like style (clarity, concision), idioms and also conventional things like subject-verb agreement and pronouns.

Finally, at 6pm I started off with RC. A challenge which required me to draw on my decade-long teaching experience to engage the students into another long session on RC - focussing purely on how to attack the passage and types of question - individual approach to each question type. Next class, I promise, would be a lot more interesting with special emphasis on "What to do if you have 3mins to finish a RC passage ?" :)

Closed a long day (11-hours) with a feedback session. Its very important me to get a "feel" of how things went so I can use that to alter the next sessions. The response has been positive and I hope my excitement and passion for GMAT rubs into the students :)

Thanks to everyone who has been supportive of this venture. It has been tough at times to pull it off all by myself. Right from content & delivery to marketing & logistics. But now that the first step has been taken, I am sure things would be a lot smoother.

Another piece of good news was I have a new partner joining in. He is as passionate and and as dedicated to teaching as I am. A verbal raw score of 48 to boot ;)

Arun

Bootcamp Starts in Bangalore on 8th & 15th October

Date: 8th & 15th of October 2006

Venue:
Golden Tulip Conference Hall,
Harsha Hotel & Convention Center,
Park Road, Bangalore - 560001
Phone : +91-80-22865555/66
(3-star hotel about 2kms from MGRoad and not hard to find)

Schedule of bootcamp:

8th October (Sunday)

9:30am onwards: Tea & Snacks

10am - 11am: Diagnostic Verbal + GMAT Introduction

11am - 1:30pm: SC - 1 (Power-packed foundation session covering concepts & strategies)

1:30pm - 2pm: Lunch

2pm - 4:30pm: CR-1 (Strong fundamentals to crack 2/3rd of CR questions on the GMAT)

4:30pm - 5:00pm: High-tea

5:00pm - 6:30pm: RC-1 (How to understand without reading everything, advanced reading techniques)

15th October (Sunday)

9:30am onwards: Tea & Snacks

10am - 1:30pm: SC-2 (Advanced concepts including test strategies and flashcards)

1:30pm - 2pm: Lunch

2pm - 4:00pm: CR-2 (Focussing on advanced concepts - what to expect on 700+)

4:00pm - 4:30pm: High-tea

4:30pm - 6:30pm: RC-2 (How to answer without understanding everything)

6:30pm onwards: Diagnostic Test 2 & review answers

Post Camp:

We would be collecting personal details and our panel of experts would devise a personalized plan. This is followed by a period of mentorship from our side till you take your GMAT. This includes an exlusive email id to send your queries plus option of having a personal session with the experts anytime till you take the test.

Registration: Please call on 9886212835/9886241819 to confirm your participation. Alternately, drop a mail at gmatbootcamp[AT]gmail.com with your contact details.

Cost: Rs.3000/- paid at time of registration. This all inclusive for the entire program- taxes, food, class handouts etc.

GTTPQ - GMAT Bootcamp

Whenever Im rambling about anything, my old friends usually retort - GTTPQ, which means Get To The Point Quickly !

Let me do the same about the GMAT Bootcamp

(1) When is it and where will it be held ?

October 7th & 8th. Venue is in the process of being finalized - should be in central Bangalore.

(2) How do I register ?

Registrations will be on-the-spot. We will be accepting the money (Rs.3000/-) in cash and you would be asked to fill a form which we would have for our own records.

(3) Who are the other people behind this ?

There are 4 people currently behind this venture other than I - Keya (GMAT-770), Iday (GMAT-750), Neha (GMAT-770) and Rohit (GMAT-740). They would not only be the driving force behind the content and the delivery mechanism, they will also act as facilitators/guides/mentors during the entire period till you take the GMAT.

(4) When will the bootcamp happen again ?

The 1st and 2nd Sundays of each month starting November. I will be up with the spanking new website soon - by end of this week. All the details including registration form will be put up then.

(5) What is the name of this venture ?

I am too busy working on the course so haven't had time to think about it. Possibly you can suggest. Shoot a mail to gmatbootcamp [AT] gmail.com, else call me on my number.

(6) What about Quant ?

Right now, we want to focus on our core competency - Verbal. Including a 3-hour session on advanced math concepts (Inequalities, P&C, Statistics etc.) is on the anvil.

(7) What about helping in Quant and AWA ?

Needless to say every aspect of your GMAT prep is covered through the course. This includes quant and AWA. All you need to do is pick up the phone dial or shoot a mail. You will always have an answer for each of your questions.

(8) Are you full-time faculty ? What are your credentials ?

I hold a Bachelors degree in Science and Masters degree in Computers, and work as an Account Manager for a software product-based company. Teaching has been my passion and have been doing it for over a decade now (yes I'm relatively "old"). I have been teaching at various places including ZAP Infotech, Aptech, IMS, Career Launcher etc. earning a reputation for passionate instruction and personalized delivery. I go under the name Psychodementia in pagalguy.com and have close to 2000 posts over the last 3years.

(9) What is the material you will be getting during the course ?

The class is almost entirely exercise-driven and would compose of:

(a) Class exercise - Questions would be from OG 11. We would cover the entire OG 11 book in the course of the 2 days.

(b) Handouts - These would be simplified notes that would supplement the content taught in the class.

(c) Books - Please contact me over mail/phone to know more about this.

(10) Is there are any guarantees for a great score ?

What we guarantee is the best faculty, the best content and the best support model in the GMAT prep industry right now. However, as with other things, nothing in life can be achieved without hard-work. We will show you the way but it then has to be your own persistence and passion with the test which will help you excel.

Please let me know if any other questions need to be answered, I can update this post.

The die is cast

Yes ! Finally, the wait is over (how conceited to think that people were actually waiting for this :)

The camp (its not "classes") would happen at a central location in Bangalore, on the first weekend of each month.

Details:

Date: October 7th & 8th (Saturday & Sunday)

Time: 10am (I don't wake up early on weekends) to
7pm (Just before the happy hours in the bars get over)

Venue: To be declared

Here are the details (in no particular order)

(a) 12 hours of intensive Verbal prep camp. 6 hours each day over 2 days.

(b) The best approaches to each problem area that the publishing and the internet world has to offer. The entire program will be exercise driven and class handouts will be used for ample practice. Over the course of the 2 days the aim to is to solve atleast a few hundred problems.

(c) A welcome kit will be couriered to everyone registering for the course, which will explain in detail what they need to come with, what they can expect, what they will need prepare themselves, how to maximize from the camp etc.

(d) There will be a short diagnostic test on Saturday morning and another one on Sunday morning to quantify the improvement you show through just 2 days of intensive focussed study.

(e) The day would like this (subject to change):

Day 1:
------

GMAT Orientation - 10am to 10:30am

Diagnostic Test - 10:30am to 11am

Sentence Correction 1 - 11am to 1pm

Lunch - 1pm to 2pm

Critical Reasoning 1 - 2pm to 4pm

Tea Break - 4pm to 4:30pm

Reading Comprehension 1 - 4:30pm to 6:30pm

Day 2:
------

Sentence Correction 2 - 10am to 1pm (okay you *will* have a short break)

Lunch - 1pm to 2pm

Critical Reasoning 2 - 2pm to 4pm

Tea Break - 4pm to 4:30pm

Reading Comprehension 2 - 4:30pm to 5:30pm

Diagnostic Test 2 - 5:30pm to 6:30pm

General Discussion - 6:30pm onwards

(f) The camp size would be small and focus would be on individual progress. There would be a seperate tracker maintained to analyze your problem areas. Then, the board of advisors (panel of distinguished GMAT takers - with an average score hovering around the 99th percentile) would work up a personalized plan for you to follow depending on when you plan to take the test.

(g) There would be a special email id sent to you after the camp where you can mail the doubts and difficulty you encounter during your preparation. The turn-around time for the answers would be less than 24hours along with a detailed explanation. Initially there is no restriction on the number of questions you can post.

(h) At any point before your test you are free to have a personal discussion regarding your progress. A detailed analysis of what you have to do (or what you need to avoid) will be given within the next 2 to 3 days after consulting with our board of advisors.

(i) If for some reason you feel you did not score as much as required in your GMAT in the Verbal section and wish to take it again, the next camp will be free of cost to you (if you promise not to open your mouth and give out all the answers).

(j) Moreover, we would be providing you with all material you might require during your prep (but hey - you need to pay for the books) as well as giving you pointers about where to get the best prep material on the internet. Yes, we also include maths here.

(k) Tips regarding college selection, how to plan your application, reviewing your draft essays, where to apply etc will be provided. This is more on an advisory basis. This is, needless to say, free of cost to students in the first three batches (Oct-Nov-Dec) only.

(l) The faculties as well as members of the advisory board are geniune people - all of whom have scores in the 700 range. Many of them in the 99th percentile. The content of the camp presentation as well as the delivery mechanism has been prepared taking all the inputs of people who have "been-there-and-done-that" to ensure optimal learning curve.

(m) Yes, I know you have been waiting to hear this. The course fee is Rs.3000/- paid by cash (I can refer you to the nearest ATM incase you present me a cheque).

(n) Those inquisitive can join the 1st session *free of cost* by prior appointment. If they make the payment then and there, they can (obviously) attend the rest of the course. Or else they are free to walk out with whatever little they learned.

If you want to register or know more, call either of these numbers: 9886212835 or 9886241819. Or alternately mail gmatbootcamp [AT] gmail.com

Arun