Most important aspect of application

Exceptions are always there but usually most of the top companies don't even recruit at lower ranked colleges...

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Agreed. By weakness meant in relative terms not absolute . As someone else pointed out people applying to B Schools will have above average work experience.
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I love to express when there are no correct answers!

I voted for work/ex and company brand for the following reasons:

1.) Most of the factors that you mentioned, directly or indirectly are 'based' on your work history. You are nothing without the work you have done. Your essays, recos, interviews etc. are, primarily, a derived factor of your resume.
2.) I will put my faith in a person from McK than in a person who says he is brilliant but does not have a brand backing. And I'm sure so will the adcom. The person from McK has already been selected out of a competitive pool, has worked with the best minds, has worked on the best projects and frankly, brings a LOT more to the table.
3.) Your GMAT essentially explains your ability to do well on a standardized test. It can keep you out, but does not guarantee admissions. And the fact that most of the qualified candidates do get a good score (the ethic made them a strong candidate in the first place), does not make the GMAT very important when we talk about the M7s. Having said that, obviously a 99% goes a long way in saying that you are very serious about your MBA.
4.) I sometimes feel the essays are over-rated. I haven't seen a lot of candidates without extra ordinary credits get into a big school. That only explains that essays are a medium to explain what you have already achieved in your past life. There are few qualified and sane candidates, who outright screw their essays.
They are obviously very useful when you are comparing similar qualified candidates - but, again, we are assuming that both have an exceptional work history, which makes the essays sort of a 'tie-breaker'.

5.) I look at the work history as a long process, drawn out over the 5-6 years of one's career. I think its a much better indicator of the pedigree than the GMAT - that's written in a day (and prepared over 3 months) and essays, which might have consultant's input - not saying it is wrong to use them

Anyone may rip apart the above points because they generalize a lot of things. But, in essence, this is what I've gathered till now!

This comes from someone who does have a 99% GMAT, but is still skeptical of his chances!

The point is you will be an exception as well going to a mid ranked school. If you have set your eyes on McKinsey/ Booz then sure going to a Top 7 MBA will enhance your chances. However I feel that the charm of Top 10-25 schools have decreased quite a bit for Internationals. The reason being high cost and fewer opportunities. Indian Grads from a top 15 school are working in Hong Kong/Middle east. I need to find out the reason. I think the reason being high cost of MBA. A cheaper MBA will not force you to take a high paying job outside North America. Just trying to offer a different perspective.
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I really like this point. A lot of applicants get discouraged when they see that people with scores in the 750-770 range are getting admitted to top schools. Like you said, a lot of these applicants have strong achievements and work experience to go along with it, and in reality probably could have gotten admitted with a lower score. The total package matters. This is why on decision day, you'll see folks with a GMAT in the 680-700 range gleefully reporting: "In! Just got the call!" while someone with a 750-770 glumly reports "Ding! What's wrong with my application?"

Stats like GPA and GMAT are a baseline, and once you cross a threshold, you see diminishing value of returns (with the exception of Sloan and their objective scoring matrix).

Jumsumtak
Incase you are working at a Top Consulting firm, with a 770 you are M7 material, no need to be skeptical. The only reason you were denied this year was probably because of less than the average length of work experience.
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So far essays, GMAT and work ex are competing for top place with 14, 15 and 16 votes respectively.

Well, you got some interesting conclusions presented out there. I am thinking on these lines:

60-70% of class is formed by US nationals while rest includes internationals including people already living in US. This imbalance creates a situation where the parameters for US and for international applicants are entirely different. While applicants from US(citizens and residents) have better probability of getting in with lower gmat or not-so-stellar work ex, the international applicants must cover the ground very well to sneak into that 30-40% of the class.

I guess then there isn't one component that can be compensated by others for internationals at least in top colleges.
Thus importance of essays increases a bit, considering that you need to highlight your achievements in a way that they appear bigger than similar achievements by the next applicant. Someone with better work ex may not be able to showcase it as beautifully as another candidate with slightly weaker work ex may. Essays are the only part of ur application that speaks for itself and for rest of your application.

Probably someone or AbhiJ, who seem to have very good contacts, can chime in with some example,if any, wherein any Indian applicant got into a top college with sub 700 score or with less than 3 yrs work ex or with not-so-carefully crafted essays.

Vips,

The closest thing to the profile you mentioned was a girl with 700 GMAT and 3 years of IT Consulting experience(requirements gathering etc) who was admitted to Darden. Some schools weigh GMAT heavily. Couple of Indians with 710 were told (by 2 Top 10 schools) that their profile was otherwise good but they need to improve their GMAT.

Another problem with Indians is that every profile looks same. Hence some guys lie through their teeth in essays/work experience. An example of an accepted candidate:

Saved 60 million $ for IT Services company (this guy had overall 4-5 years of experience). Partners at these firms hardly save that much money, whereas a developer can.
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Totally agree.. One of my senior.. From same college.. From same company and even from same project got through tuck while I dint even get an invite for interview for ross and duke.. The fact is that he got the first promotion after 5 yrs when I got in 2.5 yrs.. But when I see his LinkedIn profile I know what kind of lies he had put in his application.. Sad that I don't have guts to lie through my teeth...

The lying referenced above doesn't take guts but a lack of morals and ethics. Play the game the right way and let's hope there arent too many people lying through their teeth taking our spots.

I love how this vote has gone though. The people who argue for one category say you cant get in with a 400 gmat are right. And people who argue you cant get in with a job at a conveinence store as a clerk are pretty right as well. You arent getting in with an awful rec, or awful job/gmat, if you choose not to write the essays well and fill them with grammar errors, or act like a jackass in the interview. The truth is it is holistic for the most part. There are a few exceptions to every rule, sure. If you are an exception to the rule though, you probably know that your work experience as the Presidents right hand man is going to hook you up and arent coming to this forum.

For the record, my vote was for work experience. Personally I felt my lack of managing people in work experience hurt me. But no one to blame but myself. I wasnt the holistic candidate the top schools were looking for. There are so many great candidates, you simply have to be great in all of the areas in this poll. You can get away with being good or slightly above average in 1 or 2 criteria, but if you are truly awful in any, you arent gettin in.

If you have good/interesting work experience you will be able to write good essays fairly easily and get good recommendations. I think the importance of essays has been blown way out of proportion thanks to the number of admissions consultants out there.

Congrats for dream admits..HBS and Wharton!

True, one may have lot to write about but picking right things and covering everything in 300-400 words make essays more important than the overall work ex.

Such behavior is at par with score-top cheating (others may disagree). Its true that you can not possibly verify all the details of an applicant, but come on with years of experience if admission committee cannot smell a rat then what's the point of having a holistic approach. In a telephonic interview an imposter was acting for the candidate. This happened with HBS no less. The accepted person was caught when he could not contribute in Case Discussion at HBS, flunked and was eased out after a semester. At the end of the day "Nice guys do finish first". I also agree with Dbalks that people are lying not because they have guts but because they lack self-confidence which they seem to overcompensate with fake achievements.
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A guy from an elite PE/VC firm could write basically anything and get into HBS. It's all interconnected but if you could be the absolute best at one thing, I think work experience trumps essays by a long shot. Derrick Bolton even said he could admit candidates without essays, but not without letters of rec (source: An old chat on stacyblackman.com).

When Adcoms say all parameters of the profile are equally important, they are actually telling the truth.

But this generic statement has lot of exceptions and adcoms have to dig down into all the factors.
A good gmat can compensate lower GPA and good leadership work outside workspace can do the same for the average workex.

No single factor is important for the admission, but it could be for the ding.

Eg.

If essays are poorly written, no matter how many accompanishments you have, you will be dinged.

If essays are superb and interesting, and you show how well you fit into Why MBA, why This school, why now questions then 20-30 gmat difference won't ding you.

If essays are superb and accompanishments are great but your recommendor wrote out of the box and did not highlight good points about you or the LOR is not in sync with the applications, the chances are very high you will get dinged.


Diversity is also an important consideration. You can not expect adcoms to admit you when they already have 20 similar profiles and some of the key factors for other profiles are better than yours. Adcoms have responsibility to create a diversified class and it is a rule of the game. So I will not argue or show anger if adcom ding me for being an Indian IT Male. Yes I m at dis advantage but it does not mean I do not have chances. My first step should be to compete against my fellow Indians and try to portrait how well I fit into the school and how different myprofile is from the others.
If you can not differentiate on professional attributes, you can do so on personal qualities.

So basically our strategy should be to look into the options that can improve our chances.
Gmat, Essays, Extra curricular activities, and recommendations are some of the parameters that we can improve now. So if you are from an overly representated profile, look into the options that can improve your chances.

I strongly believe if the Gmat is in a respectable range, then scoring 20-30 more will not guarantee the admission.
Eg 700 is a good base point for all schools, so if you are dinged with 700 gmat, then having 750 will not let you in. You must dig deeper into the application to analyze what went wrong and how to reduce the odds.

Hey dude. That's a bit off the topic..

My question is, is there a component of application that is most important or that can't be compensated by other factors...not on how to improve chances...

Great input..that HBS dude must have really been a dud..I hope people watch out before they talk through their a$$. And adcoms smell the rat for everyone's good

I guess I'd like to think that interviews matter more than this, but you very well may be right. And I have no sense of how much recs matter. I feel like they're less important, but that could be because I never saw them.