GMAT 690(q49 v 34 ). Enough to get in top 20 B schools ?

Ankit- 690 is definitely a great score. Congrats clearly you have strong Quantitative abilities. I would advice that you build on other parts of your application. Volunteering, community service are great ways to show that you are a well rounded individual. I am sure you have great potential and wish you luck in your applications.

congrats man. 690 is certainly good score.
also, would you like to share your strategy for verbal. How did you improve sc/cr and rc - what resources did you use, what did you do different this time etc. etc... . This would be helpful for folks like me who are struggling to improve verbal score.

690 is fine, and congrats to you, but I am amazed how much weight people in here put on the GMAT. When you start filling out applications and writing essays, you realize just how small a part of the whole package it is. If you spend months or even years trying to break 700 because you "deserve better" (which is kind of an arrogant thing to say...you get the score you earn...the test makers don't owe you anything because you think you are smart), you're wasting your time and you would be wise to take an econ course to learn the meaning of opportunity cost.

You should be spending a LOT more time making yourself look special in the essays. If you are Indian with a technical/programming/IT background, and i'm just being honest here, you are really at a disadvantage. Even with a 750, adcoms read literally 1000s of essays from the same Indian IT people over and over and over. We all know what IT guys really do, and it is not particularly interesting, especially if you are not in a managerial position. What are you going to write about in your essays, how you fixed a glitch in the office printer and everyone slapped you on the back? The point is, I think you ought to focus on extracurriculars or volunteering to strengthen the essays and make yourself standout. No matter how high you score on the GMAT, with an Indian IT background, it won't really matter. They expect your demographic to have insanely high GMAT scores, so you have to make up for it in other ways.

690 is a very good score. But it is one part of the application.. focus on your essays, highlight your extracurriculars. I only wish a GMAT score could be a shoe-in for the application process, but fortunately they care more about students than numbers .

Aspirando, I totally agree with you that being an IT professional from India is not helpful. There are so many people with the same profile that the person becomes one in a zillion. All the youth brain power is concentrated mostly in the IT guys and even a good score (say 690) would be an average amongst the IT guys. More importantly, even if the guy solved big technical glitches, it does not add any importance to the need of his MBA degree.

Unluckily, I also belong to the same category. Even though I've had a good academic background and completed my engg from NITs, I have achieved nothing that makes me stand out (apart from solving bugs ).

yeah i mean i give you total credit for being very smart...probably smarter than i. i couldn't fix ANY printer glitches. but i just try to put myself in the adcoms shoes, you know? like, let's say i'm an adcom. it's 4 pm on a friday and i've been reading applications for 50 hours this week already. i wanna go home. and what's this? another indian IT applicant. great.

now, here is what i think will really help you. get involved with some volunteer stuff where you can get in a management role. write about that stuff, not the IT experience. that will get the adcom to sit up in his/her chair at 4 on a friday, you know? do something that makes that adcom sit up in the chair.

best of luck dude

although, my friend, i must say that your comment that "all the youth brain power is concentrated mostly in the IT guys" is, well, absurd and completely untenable. that assertion is just flat out wrong. sorry. i am not in IT and suck at computers, admittedly, but i got in the 97th percentile in verbal, and i would bet good money that the vast majority of those IT guys couldn't touch a score like that. not even close, and we all know it. different people are gifted in different ways. i'll admit they have great math skills, but assuming "brain power" means overall intelligence and not just math skills (i.e. plug and chug chills) , your assertion doesn't hold much water. peace my friend.