GMAT - 640 and TOEFL 96 - Whats cooking further ?

Hi Flamboyantatmba:
I would strongly consider retaking the GMAT. You are leaving a lot on the table with respect to your verbal score. They know you are quantitatively gifted. What you need to demonstrate is a little more balance. of course, a little more balance would also increase your overall GMAT score. If this would serve to move you closer to top 20 business schools as opposed to the top 35 or 40 business schools you are targeting right now.

The above would affect the timing of your applications. I suggest you apply in the second round. the competitive difference between around one and around two is minimal. However the extra time that you would have to focus on your GMAT verbal would pay enormous dividends with respect to the schools that you could apply to.

With respect to your current school choices, I am not a big fan of many of these programs. They are simply not competitive enough for you to move from India to the United States for study. You are about to go into a lot of debt to pay for school. think about the ROI. Is it fair with a school like the University of Oklahoma? I am not sure that it is or is not. On another level, I believe that you can do better with respect to finance and supply chain programs. will your current score of 640 you should also target these programs --Michigan State University, Ohio State University, Penn State University and Arizona State University.

One final consideration with respect to any MBA program you choose to apply to. should you elect to move back to India at some point in your original career, you are going to need a school that garners recognition. Going tto a school such as "Cleveland" calls into question this recognition. So, do not handcuff yourself today because you could not get your GMAT verbal score up. Take the GMAT again.

Respectfully,

Paul Lanzillotti

Thanks a lot paul for such a lengthy explanation. I would think about re taking GMAT but only thing thats holding back is I am really skeptical about me increasing my verbal score ..

this is the way that I would look at your verbal score. I believe that you can identify with what I'm about to say, given that you are an engineer. As an engineer you should have an understanding of acute issues versus chronic issues -- in any system, including the GMAT. If we were determining root causes of your low verbal performance, we should be glad to see that it is isolated in one area of the GMAT. This tells us that we can probably find the root cause of your poor performance if we examine the types of questions you got wrong on your verbal. If we were encountering the opposite situation -- where both verbal and Quant were universally low -- then we may be out of luck in figuring out what went wrong or they may be simply too much to address before the application deadlines. So what am I saying? I am saying since the problem is isolated, and since you have an analytical mind, you should be able to drill down figure out what it is about verbal you are getting wrong -- to find that acute problem -- and bang it out. Otherwise you are leaving money on the table in selling yourself short.

I know this is going to require a lot of work, but what is the alternative? That you spent a lot of money and get an MBA degree that may not have a defined ROI?

Respectfully,

Paul Lanzillotti