710 (QA 50, VA 34) 1.5 Year exp at Big 4 i-Bank

[tagwl199]

I just took the GMAT and scored the following

Overall: 710 (92nd Percentile)
Quant: 50 (92th Percentile)
Verbal: 34 (69th Percentile)

I am basically looking for a specialization in Finance from a Top 15 B-School

Going by the low VA score, should I go for a retest ? or is there a way to compensate for VA without a retest ?

Which schools should I be targetting to apply ?

Thanks

[mbamission]

HI Tagwl,

Moreso than your verbal score, I'm concerned about your limited work experience. If you are applying in this current season you'd be entering with two years experience, and competing against many candidates from top banks, eyeing Finance concentrations from top schools. If you do have your reasons for looking now though, then focus more on the top-10-15 range -- Cornell, Carnegie, maybe NYU/MIT as a near-reach.

The verbal score itself won't weigh you down much, but obviously the missing points there damage your overall score. There isn't much to do to compensate for that beyond writing great essays to show you know how to communicate.

Best of luck,

Daniel Richards
http://www.mbamission.com

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