[#permalink]
18 Oct 2006, 03:10
To answer your specific questions:
1) You need to remember that although very few schools specifically state that they will reject any applicant who doesn't have a master's degree, not having one definitely means you have to find a way to prove that you're "good enough" for graduate work, especially at shools like Michigan or CMU (don't know enough about Purdue). Having written/presented a paper is a step toward that but is probably not a perfect substitute for graduate work such as courses in Math or Econ. IMO the low GPA itself won't hurt you that much if you can explain why it wasn't higher, but you'll definitely need a great GMAT score, especially on the quant side.
2) As tkkoh said, 680-730 is probably "not enough", especially as an undergrad. Many schools such as Tepper have cut down on their PhD programs so they'd rather reject borderline candidates.
3) Yes, you need to be very strong on quant. You can always brush up your verbal skills, whatever that means. Excellent math abilities will help a great deal when reading papers.
4) When it comes to the PhD program, I wouldn't say Michigan and CMU are much weaker than the other schools you've mentioned, but just look at the student webpages at MIT for example. Most of them, international or not, have master's degrees from Princeton or Yale or Stanford. You can't honestly compare to those guys, even if you scored 780 on the GMAT.
Side notes:
a) I don't think that having gotten A's in IS-related courses helps in any way. That's expected of you. Had you gotten C's it'd have hurt you.
b) If you plan to apply to top schools, don't state in your application packages that you want to go back to your home country after you get the PhD. The top schools' reputations are based on placement, and no matter how the school you end up in Malaysia is, it never beats UC-Berkeley or Michigan, or even Emory or Rice. Last year, I heard the head of my PhD program basically say (in his welcoming comments) "if you don't go to a top school after you complete the PhD here, we've failed you, and you've failed us".