Hi there,
I plan to admit one of top 20 b-schools in US. However I have a GPA of 2.8 which might be a disadvantage for me but a qualified 4 years experience of engineering. I study for GMAT to score high enogh to overcome this GPA disadvantage. Scores of both two GMAT trials are around 630-640. I feel I need to improve this range.
Do you have any idea about what the GMAT score should be around not to be rejected under conditions like these? It might not be convenient to answer such a question but I wondered any way. One more question: where does AWA stand for b-schools in evaluation of a candidate?
Thanks in advance!!
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- RonPurewal
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hi -
your questions are difficult, if not impossible, to answer without a great deal of extra information.
first, and most importantly, there is much, much more to your application than a gpa, a gmat score, a number of years of work experience, and a given field! if your scores are middle-range, and you've worked in a field that traditionally feeds business schools (engineering is definitely such a field), then it's the REST of your application that is going to make or break your chances of admission.
consider the following:
* do you have any 'diversity factors'? do you belong to an underrepresented race, or are you female (unusual in engineering), or are you in any other way significantly different from the typical profile of applicants from your area and field of work?
* do you have strong recommendation letters from reputable professional mentors who can testify to your potential, flexibility, ingenuity, creativity, and/or leadership skills?
* have you taken on any significant leadership roles in your business or community?
* etc.
without more knowledge about these aspects of your application - the aspects that will differentiate your application from those of the tens of thousands of other applicants - it's not possible to say anything about specific scores.
even with the answers to these questions, by the way, it's still foolish to predict 'cutoff scores' with too much precision. here's the advice i usually give:
work the hardest on the STRONGEST PART and the WEAKEST PART of your application.
whatever these are - that's for you to figure out - these two will be the most important and memorable parts of your application. if the weakest part is 'uniqueness / diversity factors', then work hard on developing those, or, at the very least, tweaking your application to make it look as though you've developed them.
emphasize leadership qualities.
if you have taken a leadership role in anything significant, whether work-related or not, now is the time to brag about it. do not be humble.
emphasize unusual aspects of your job, if any.
do you do analysis in an unusual or cutting-edge industry? do you have knowledge of international cultures that you can bring to the table? have you started any new projects, departments, endeavors, original research, etc.?
--
the awa score is two things: a 'checkpoint' and a 'hygiene factor'.
"checkpoint": the schools will use the awa as a cross-reference for your essays, comparing the two to make sure that YOU are really the author of your own essays. they will, of course, tolerate a certain degree of difference in writing quality (because you have only 30 minutes to write the awa essays, vs. unlimited time to write the application essays), but they will not brook complete wholesale differences that are large enough to arouse suspicion that your essays have been written by a professional other than yourself.
"hygiene factor": like personal hygiene, a good essay score is "fine", an excellent essay score is "fine", and a perfect 6.0 is "fine". really, any differences above 3.5-4.0 or so are insignificant; they just want to make sure you have at least a basic level of competency in writing. they're not looking for the next great american writer.
your questions are difficult, if not impossible, to answer without a great deal of extra information.
first, and most importantly, there is much, much more to your application than a gpa, a gmat score, a number of years of work experience, and a given field! if your scores are middle-range, and you've worked in a field that traditionally feeds business schools (engineering is definitely such a field), then it's the REST of your application that is going to make or break your chances of admission.
consider the following:
* do you have any 'diversity factors'? do you belong to an underrepresented race, or are you female (unusual in engineering), or are you in any other way significantly different from the typical profile of applicants from your area and field of work?
* do you have strong recommendation letters from reputable professional mentors who can testify to your potential, flexibility, ingenuity, creativity, and/or leadership skills?
* have you taken on any significant leadership roles in your business or community?
* etc.
without more knowledge about these aspects of your application - the aspects that will differentiate your application from those of the tens of thousands of other applicants - it's not possible to say anything about specific scores.
even with the answers to these questions, by the way, it's still foolish to predict 'cutoff scores' with too much precision. here's the advice i usually give:
work the hardest on the STRONGEST PART and the WEAKEST PART of your application.
whatever these are - that's for you to figure out - these two will be the most important and memorable parts of your application. if the weakest part is 'uniqueness / diversity factors', then work hard on developing those, or, at the very least, tweaking your application to make it look as though you've developed them.
emphasize leadership qualities.
if you have taken a leadership role in anything significant, whether work-related or not, now is the time to brag about it. do not be humble.
emphasize unusual aspects of your job, if any.
do you do analysis in an unusual or cutting-edge industry? do you have knowledge of international cultures that you can bring to the table? have you started any new projects, departments, endeavors, original research, etc.?
--
the awa score is two things: a 'checkpoint' and a 'hygiene factor'.
"checkpoint": the schools will use the awa as a cross-reference for your essays, comparing the two to make sure that YOU are really the author of your own essays. they will, of course, tolerate a certain degree of difference in writing quality (because you have only 30 minutes to write the awa essays, vs. unlimited time to write the application essays), but they will not brook complete wholesale differences that are large enough to arouse suspicion that your essays have been written by a professional other than yourself.
"hygiene factor": like personal hygiene, a good essay score is "fine", an excellent essay score is "fine", and a perfect 6.0 is "fine". really, any differences above 3.5-4.0 or so are insignificant; they just want to make sure you have at least a basic level of competency in writing. they're not looking for the next great american writer.
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