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06 Feb 2007, 17:57
I believe that for most schools, there are clear admits and denies. It's very surprising to see someone with a 3.9 from a top school and a 760+ denied, and it's also surprising to see someone with a 2.3 from a mediocre school and a 650 admitted.
Then there is a large pool of people that could be considered in the mix; people that are within the 80% middle for GPA & GMAT. These are people that can be admitted or denied based on other factors. I don't necessarily think it is a crapshoot, but there is definitely some randomness involved. I also believe that people need to be realistic about the other parts of their application.
For example, if both GPA & GPA are within the 80% middle, but below the average, then chances are probably not good. I think it's important to consider that just like with GPA & GMAT, 5 or 10% of applicants can distinguish themselves in other parts of their application. Sure, everyone thinks they will write winning essays, honestly, only 5-10% will really be great. People need to be honest with themselves; is there any reason to believe that their essays will be better than those of competing applicants? There are people around with truly distinguishing experiences and truly elite writing skills because they use them every day. It's a mistake for everyone to think that they can be average or below average in GPA & GMAT, and automatically assume they will score points with their essays.
Same with interview skills. Probably 5-10% will really be able to distinguish themselves in this arena. Each person knows whether it is reasonable to assume they will do will.
Work experience is no different. A small percentage of the people of the people out there had really distinguishing work experience. Then there's the other 90-95% of applicants.
So, I don't believe it's a total crapshoot, even for those in the general mix. I believe that some of the deciding factors are not necessarily clear. A useful checklist might look something like this, and for top ten schools you probably need to be above average in almost all of them:
GMAT & GPA: both above average, pretty much in the middle, both below average.
Work Experience: Truly distinguishing with lots of responsibility and promotions at a job that was highly competitive to obtain, an average experience at a job that was highly competitive, below average experience at an elite job, average at an average job, average performance at a low-level job, etc. Be honest, some people are coming from jobs where there were hundreds of applicants for each position.
Essays: Awesome experiences and excellent writing skills, average experiences and excellent writing skills, below-average experiences with poor writing skills, any of the above with poor writing skills, etc. Again, be honest - are you a great essay writer? Why do you believe that?
Interview: Again, try to gauge the full range of competition. Some other applicants are in positions where they interview applicants for their current companies. People that have been through (on both sides of the table) dozens or hundreds of interviews will likely do the best. People that make friends easily will likely do well. Do not discount good looks and do not discount natural charisma. Each person knows themselves (take a hard look and be honest) to know whether they are the type that can expect to have killer interviews.
If there were a way to accurately judge this type of information, I don't think it would seem to be as much of a crapshoot. People really are only qualified to examine themselves, given the data available.