"The GMAT 500 candidate"

My fellow GMAT clubbers,

Now that round 1 is all but done (congratulations to those who have received interviews so far), I just thought i'd raise an interesting topic for us to discuss to help take your minds off the painful and agonizing process of waiting to hear back from your top choice schools.

Stanford's GMAT range (class of 2010) was from 530 - 790 and Harvard's was from I think 550 - 800. I also read in forums that Wharton admitted students with a GMAT score of 590. This makes me wonder what type of candidate with a mid 500 GMAT score would be attractive to an ultra elite school such as H/S/W.

What do you guys think will be the typical profile of someone in the 500 range accepted at these ultra elite schools. Does one have to for example be the future heir to the throne of his town/country in the developing/developed world?
Does one have to have rescued victims in a bomb blast or rescued an orphan and provided her/him with an opportunity to succeed in life?
Does one have to have helped (played a key role e.g. led/jointly led) secure a $500m + deal.
or does one have to have won some sort of Olympic medal or sold over a 10 million records/books ??
Found a cure for HIV?
Climbed the CN Tower bare hands?

I'm really intrigued to know what the typical profile for a GMAT 500 candidate at these ultra elite schools is.

Any thoughts?

I think there is no typical profile since this is not a typical admit to these schools!

That said, I think you would need a profile so incredible that it would be downright bizarre that you would want to get an MBA. The sort of profile that you would have no reason ever to leave your villa in Nice.

To answer your question, yes to all of the above.

I would bet if you took the 500-something GMAT matriculants at Stanford, they have all started and sold companies, won some sort of world championship, or saved at the minimum a small village, preferably in the 3rd world. I'm not kidding either.

Yup, that guy

fatb, That may be the funniest post I've ever read. Too bad I can only give +1 kudos.

haha I gave the other one for you Boston. That's hilarious. I wonder what His GMAT score was, if there was one.


EDIT: BW says "[Bush's] grades weren't great, and nobody can seem to locate his GMAT scores.

But he has an SAT of 1206 (yes odd it ends in a 6, but those were different times I guess) and IQ of 124. So guess even he can't score a 550 on the GMAT.

I would think 550's might be like a Chelsea Clinton, who doesn't even bother studying cuz she's a sure lock for stanford type of deal.

W Bush is our first MBA president. Think about that one...

He's the first MBA president?

*Rethinking decision to apply for MBA*

Wait wait wait. You mean, this guy?

How long ago did HBS use the GMAT? Did they require it in 1975? I would LOOVVEEE to know W's score or his percentiles.

I agree with the above posters -

You really need to be out-of-this-world unique.

I think the comment about saving a small village in a 3rd world country is probably wrong... it would need to be a large village; minimum 10,000 inhabitants. Preferably saving the whole town from a massive fire without an easily deployable source of water.

They prolly sent someone to take the GMAT for him. Back in the day there was no biometrics so the cheating was much more easier

In addition to an amazing story such as those, it sure does help to be from an underrepresented minority group and female.

I guess since HBS is all about leadership it certainly won't hurt to be from a royal family and an heir to the throne of your home town or country.

although a note on the flipside of this, Robert McNamara (1960's Secretary of Defense who was a big reason behind the US' involvement in Vietnam), was one of the few people to have ever scored a perfect 800 on the GMAT. Also went to Harvard like W. Take that how you will.

Tarmac,

I read somewhere (sorry, I searched for the article but could not find it ) that Harvard started accepting the GMAT in the early 90s - I recall it being 93 or 94. The article mentioned that Harvard one was of the last schools to use the GMAT as a guage for incoming students. Their resistance was based on the fact that they felt the exam (and a test takers performance) would not be indicative of their performance in Bschool. It was one of the last Ivy's to adopt the GMAT as a standard test for incoming busniess students.

fwiw.

George W Bush took the GMAT in August 29, 1972. He made a perfect score, 800, the first in the nation, without any preparation after a night of wild party.





Wait sorry, I was mistaken:
He did prepare, with a night of party!


Actually he didn't do bad at all at HBS. He actually made a V-as-victory sign after one of the professor told the class that "some of you will one day become president", of course everybody laughed. He was a pretty good/okay senator too, I liked his speech back in the days. He was sharp and a glib talker.