Should I apply with this score?

Hi Hjort,
Well, as I write this post, I am in a total state of shock and frustration. I just turned in an absolutely miserable performance in the GMAT ( 650 Q 44, V 35). All along I thought I would struggle to score in verbal ( not that what ive got now is great), but I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw my poor quant score. With a bachelors in Engineering and a masters in Financial engineering from Ann Arbor, you would think GMAT quant should have been a cake walk. Oh well, thats what I thought too, and this is my lowest score ever. I wasnt tensed, i thought I was doing pretty well, got a perm/comb problem in the 4th , followed by a DS on Median and average, so i thought I was doing pretty well. But I guess i didnt. Anyway, No excuses, I screwed up.

Now here is my problem. My decision to do an MBA was almost a last minute one and Id like to enroll for the Fall 2006 term. I am looking at only a one year program, and was targeting schools like INSEAD, Michigan ( two yrs) , cornell, columbia and Kellog. Now , I am not too sure if I can even apply to all these schools with my score. I need some advice and I thought you guys would be the best to answer me. I will give you a brief snapshot of what I have done thus far.

I graduated with a bachelors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Madras, India and subsequently went on to get a masters with a specilisation in Financial Engineering from Ann Arbor. During my course of study, I was a graduate research scholar and was part of the dean's honor roll ( anyone with GPA of 3.2 and above is ). I also got to work on projects ranging from Bandwidth pricing to projects in the biophysics research division ( as a programmer).

Subsequently I came back to India to work for a Startup of an Automative giant in India. Infact, I joined one of their functions which had gone bankrupt and our mandate was to wipe out the cumulative losses in 3 years. I worked as the head of risk management and managed a loan portfolio of Rs 2300 million. I had 12 people working for me ( mostly field level guys apart from a Risk Analyst). My role was to frame credit policies, set up Risk management systems and architecture and manage the portfolio delinquency under 3% of total Assets. In the 2 years that I worked there , I got a chance to play different roles, from building a credit scoring model to implementing several risk management inititatives. The good news is this company has now broken even and is registering their first profits.

With this experience I relocated to Singapore and took up employement with Pricewaterhouse Coopers in their Risk Management consulting team. So far, I have been involved in implementation of Basel II guidelines for banks in Taiwan, Singapore and India and also have done some work for a hedge fund in China. Work here ranges from building Credit Rating models to developing an Integrated Risk Management Strategy for banks. Have worked here for 8 months now and by the time I join B -school ( IF I MAKE IT), i would have had close to 3.5 yrs of experience.

Apart from this I have done quite a bit of community work in India and in the US and was also a founder member of my High school's Alumni Club.
My questions to the you are:

1.Do you think I will be able to cover up my GMAT screw up with a little bit of my experience and explain that as an engineer, my quant skills are def much better than what my scores indicate?

2. Will I be taking a huge risk by applying with this score to the schools I mentioned.


I am really sorry about the long post. Look forward to hear from you soon. Thanks.

Skanda