Stanford GSB 2013 - Calling all Applicants

apparantly from a post dated 23 OCT they have started inviting people since then

..

Hi experts/admission consultants/applicants,

I need your advice regarding an important issue.I converted my GPA through (WES)World Education Services (3.54/4.00).My GPA on a 10.0 scale is 6.68 but since the grading system at my institute(comparable to IIT's - top10)is tough I don't know what the Adcoms will make of my 6.68 GPA.Also,not many people from my college apply to B-schools so I have no idea how adcoms will normalize my scores. I even submitted an alternative transcript from mbamath.com scoring 100/100 marks in 24 quizzes.My GMAT score is Q51,V41.

I didn't know that most of the schools were AccessWES clients,which means that they can see my verified transcripts and converted GPA online only without me having to send any transcripts from WES. I mailed to schools regarding this.

Columbia replied to the mail and added my GPA on a 4.0 scale.
Stanford replied to the mail stating that they won't make any addition to the application.(Frankly,this is not an addition,just my GPA on another scale to help the adcoms normalize my scores)
Wharton replied to the mail stating that they will ask the operations team to look at my WES 4.0 GPA but I don't have nay follow-up whether they have taken my 4.0 GPA into account.
My application data in 2 data forms was not updated in HBS Application form.I sent a mail to HBS on 7th itself(R2 deadline) but didn't get any reply.I again sent a mail on 24th regarding the data in application form and 4.0 GPA issue but have not received any reply. Should I go ahead and phone the admissions office about the issue?They are issuing invites tomorrow so I thought they might be busy and will reply to my mail later.(but 22 days and no reply)

MIT Sloan also didn't replied to the mail.Should I wait for some days before reminding on mail again or should I phone the admissions office rightaway?

My question is :-Is it okay if I call up HBS,Wharton and MIT Sloan's office or is there any different strategy for the 3 schools. I thought it was polite to just write a mail and wait for their response but geting no response at all takes me to the nail-bitting mode

I greatly appreciate your help and time in advance.Solving this issue might help calm my nerves.Really stressed for the past week.

First, your concern rests on your view that school's will not interpret your GPA correctly. This fear is probably unfounded as schools have experience in a range of grading systems, and I don't see how your school's could be SO DIFFERENT as to be completely misunderstood.

But fundamentally, you have already contacted the schools with your WES transcript, some more than once.

Should you contact them again? No.

Hi pike,

Thanks for the input.

What about the issue that I was not able to update some of the fields in the Application Form?I mailed to them regarding this issue on the deadline day -7th Jan.

I strongly agree with pike here, no need to contact them again. For HBS if memory serves, they print out the applications, so they might have added your Wes transcript in the file and not updated it online. I studied in france where the engineering schools have a very peculiar system, I was graded on a 4.0 scale, my GPA was 2.68 (this was a decent GPA in my school), I did not give an alternative transcript or a WES transcript. I was admitted to Stanford. Moral of the story : they knew how to interpret the different grading systems, else I would never have gotten in! Try and relax, even though I know it is easier said than done.

Posted from my mobile device

Hi siris,

Thanks for the input.Good to know about a successful Stanford applicant.

I wrote some points in the quote above.I do hope if not my WES transcript then the mbamath.com alternative transcript offsets my GPA issue.

I know adcoms have a good history of comparing applicants from different countries.But I was so worried,I got both the WES and mbamath.com transcripts done,just to be safe.

What to do?I am a reapplicant So tried to fill all the gaps this year.

India is not the only country like that, in France the grading differs between schools as well : I have friends in other engineering schools with completely different GPA ranges, some don't even use the 4.0 scale, the schools are tiny and output between 100 and 400 people per year, so you can not compare with other students from the school, plus to enter you have competitive exams so the "average student" is completely different from one school to the next, so even class rank is useless. Finally, there are way less french engineers applying to us MBAs than Indian IIT guys (I only know of one person who applied to an MBA in my school in the last 3 years). So I would argue it is even tougher to make sense of the French system to an adcom. Yet they still figured it out!

Trust them.

Finally, I think whether they actually got your mail and put it in your file is a non-issue.
If they did, good for you, if you call them, it might annoy them and that's it.
If they did not (for example Stanford saying they won't make additions), calling them won't change anything, except maybe annoy them.

I know its hard not knowing if they are taking your extra info into account is frustrating, but calling them can only be bad for you in my opinion. Trust that they are able to figure out your application, that is their job after all.

This board is awfully quiet...for such a hot school. Looking through the profile updates on the page one, seems none of the R2 applicants have got invite yet. Looks like most of people being interviewed now are on R1 WL.

Congrats for your invitation , hope will get one too. Best of luck

Right on! That's a pretty darn good conciliation prize

That's great! Congrats! Does it come via e-mail?

Yes, I got an email.

Congrats!!
I hope to hear such a great news soon.
When did you submit your application??


Posted from my mobile device

Exact same thing happened to me in R1! Definitely made up for missing out on an HBS invite. Good luck for your interview!

Cerasi, thank you so much for sharing! On one hand it's great to know that the invites are rolling out for R2 apps... on the other hand the wait is even more painful now... Good luck to the rest of us waiting!

By the way, are you an international applicant?

I hope I haven't made things too much worse! I figured I was eager to keep checking for a reason, even if part of that reason was self-torture...

And no, I'm not international.