Bad Attitude

I think there are definitely plenty of people who can nail a high GMAT with minimal effort. If you are not too far out of college from an math heavy major that also have strong verbal skills and work in a quant heavy jobs a 700+ should be pretty easy. However, a person who could put solid essays together in a short period of time would be extremely rare. Just the research that you need to include the right elements (clubs, classes, majors, facilities, and the specifics of the school) with the correct name since every school calls stuff different things, takes a ton of time.

Then getting 3-6 essays to work well together...thats incredibly tough. Now doing that for 3 schools in a short time is bordering on impossible, especially if those are going to be great applications.

I for one, really hate the essays.

I completely agree with Ripper on the fact that people who are recently out of college have a better chance to score higher.

Take my case, I have been out of school for the last 5 years.Now I took the derivatives and risk management class in school.Hated the prof and hated the subject.Got into trading and all i've done is trade and analyse markets. and I dare say, I've done well so far.

In view of that, my grades in school do not reflect the fact that I've made money on my trades.And I can only specify so much in the essays about my trading success.

Besides, how do I know that the person reading my resume and my essays really understands my business and my achievements............

Another thing, coming from an overrepresented majority of the applicant pool, I feel I am shortchanged at every step. there are those studs out there who can score in the 700's. But talk of quality of work and most of them sit on front of their computers and program all day. Their quality of work experience to my mind isnt too great. Afterall, the kind of leadership and business skills you can develop in those kind of jobs are limited.

No matter what schools say, GMAT is the most important factor in the end. GMAT scores are a big factor in deciding the rankings. Afterall, schools have to improve on the rankings coz that means more applicants and more money in grants/sponsorships the next year.

And finally, community service. For anyone worth his salt who works 6 days and 80+ hours a week really doesnt get much time to get involved in community service. Add to that travel for work and it gets worse.

As a friend of mine says, community service is a pastime of the richer societies. If you got 2 days a week that you dont have to work, you can plan out community service accordingly.

Ask anyone who has had a position of responsibility or accountability in a company in the developing economies or for that matter peoplke in the consulting business.You barely get time with your family. If you're gonna spend the one sunday doing community service, then you'll have a very unhappy family.But to schools it doesnt matter. you need to serve the community and thats a differentiating factor too.

Your GMAT statement is wrong, you seem to be falling prey to a common misconception. A school could easily fill a class with a bunch of 750+ kids if they wanted to. A quick look at admission411 which is very heavily populated with people who have incredibly high GMATs, the mean and median for all the top 10 schools is 730 or so, shows that GMAT isn't going to get you in. There really is no benefit of having an average above 710, thats where all schools are located...it has gone up slightly over the years but so has the amount of 700+ scores.

Yes the GMAT does play a roll in rankings but isn't the only factor. A school wouldn't want a bunch of quant jock, super nerds who all have 790s making up your class. Once you are above 720 you are above every schools average so your score good enough for every school. A good score wont get you in but a bad score can certainly keep you out but the same can be said for any factor...terrible work experience, horrible GPA, bad recs, bad essays. To get in you need to put together a complete package with all the right factors, and yes a solid GMAT is important.

As for community service, its another plus in your column but it wont keep you out. Schools realize people work lots of hours and have other commitments. I already have been accepted to Kellogg this year and my extracurriculars are non-existent. Kellogg is one school that has a reputation of putting a lot of emphasis on extras, so that illustrates it is possible. All my free time is spent renovating my antique house, I do 20+ hours a week on my house on top of working. I made sure to talk about that since I wanted them to know that it wasn't because I dont care but because I had something that dominated my freetime.

There is something called "circumstances" my friend. Never disrespect people for what they do for a living, you don't know why they ended up doing what they are doing.

On a separate note, you are able to post here thanks to few sitting in front of their computers and programming.

Hey HBS,

My aplologies If I came across badly.

I didnt mean to be offensive.

I do however am not a great believer in "Circumstances." Its you efforts , ability and motivation that drive you to do the work you do.

"Circumstances "cant dictate one's life. You work at least 8-10 hours a day.You cant let circumstances decide what you're gonna be doing for one-third of your life.

BTW, my "circumstances" at least financially don't permit me to pursue my dream of an international MBA. For an Indian, its investing more than a lifetime's earnings. But I'm still investing time and money in this dream.

What should ideally drive people is the passion and motivation, not "Circumstances". As long as you live in a democratic society and a free country, you can drive "circumstances" to your benefit, not let them define what you do..........................

I would like to take the opportunity to explain a major issue here. Your profile is 100 times better than most of the Indians in this forum.

The rants we here, I believe, are basically because there are a lot of people coming out of poverty from developing countries who made their way thru real hard work. They did the best possible in their circumstances, but that is actually less than average in a developed country like U.S. because now a days coming from those same places, e.g. India, is not percieved to be coming from a disadvantaged place, even though it was not the case before.

So here is a generation, lived through difficult circumstances, and what's happening now is that out of these, ones that were privileged enough are percieved as brightest. When we talk about Indians in top schools, many of them are not really "Indians". They are second genration of immigrants.

In short, it's diversity that can get you in, diversity of experience, diversity by demography, diversity by race, diversity by gender. If none exist , then you better be privileged enough to reach IB or PE before MBA.

Spot on HBS............................

Great thread...I'm not pissed off (though I will be if I get dinged at all my R1 schools) but I'm frazzled. It's gotten to the point where I've realized that it's all relative. This has been touched on earlier; I know that most people, including myself, paint accomplishments/job duties etc. in the most positive light. i.e. Instead of saying that you were part of the team that created new product x, you can write I led the development of aspect abc of new product x that went on to do 123. But after talking with other applicants and alumni it's amazing how people are willing to completely exagerate accomplishments...That and the whole "we evaluate you on your accomplishments/holistic teaching environment" mantra is incredibly annoying. I agree with river, GMAT is not an absolute, you can get into a great school with a 600 but you better have done some truly amazing things. If you have a high 600 or mid to low 700 with fairly strong work ex. chances are a school will take you over someone with a 770 and ho-hum work ex. Maybe we all have to be used car salesmen, package your profile in the best way possible, use a bit of flattery and hope the customer buys what you're selling.

I don't really have an answer to that, Ashish.
If you are in India, I am sure this place called "Control" is still in existence, where poor get in line for cheap government ration. Go talk to a child standing in line there. You will be shocked.

Come to think of it HBS, I can understand you.

Its just that I personally have always been a sort of a rebel so things and people haven't succeded in controlling me.

And I ended up marrying the only person who really can control me......

So yes, with my wife around, "circumstances" do determine what happens......

But I guess thats the story with most married men, isnt it??

cripes, you 08-ers are making us 07-ers regret our unmitigated ramblings. holy cow.

Ashish- you sound exactly like my dad. When my wife and I told him that she got a job, he asked her if she would sit in front a computer the whole day? I would say most professions now involve sitting in front of a comp the whole day with a few meetings interspersed here and there.

I would have to say you can exhibit leadership and initiative in any job. It is upon the employee (and applicant) to reflect and highlight those that apply. Again, I am not sure all the s/w engineers out of India are working there because of circumstance but I would say it is also because of choice- maybe the pay is good, like the challenge (?) and what not...

So..I mean to say- you cannot generalize

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I found this MBA

https://www.brixxpizza.com/MBA2.shtml

all of us can get in this.

All I meant was that you all have bumped our long-buried rants. And suddenly we see posts we'd long forgotten about popping back up, and we think, oh, man, we were a wreck! Or maybe, I can't believe I said that!

It was meant in humor. Believe me, I sympathize with how rough this process is. I was thinking about it tonight, actually. This time last year I was in utter freak-out mode. I probably have more to do now, but I'm less stressed.

Yup, I do agree that the admissions process is a big, stinky pile of BS. And it gets that much more crappy when some young, high-flying PE associate who loves 'consuming' (https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2007/05/fwd-a-suitable-girl/) gets into HBS (for reasons I really can't fathom) and some poor average-joe who worked hard to put himself through college, get a job and make a life for himself doesn't because his 'profile' is not good enough. Bollocks.