Bad grade in final year

The D I mentioned is for one of the 40 classes I took in the span of 4 years (not counting the Lab credits/classes and projects which would take the count to 64 grades in my transcript) for a subject called Software Quality. This was a time when recruiters come to campus and students shift their attention away from academics to recruiting, which made me the only one working in the major group project and carrying it forward to a B+ for the group.

Although my biggest weakness would be my lower than avg work experience (3 years on matriculation) .Academically speaking, there are a couple more things going on in my transcript -

- I have a C in a class called "Mathematics 2" (They taught advanced Calculus in this class, but the transcript doesn't mention this) in the 3rd semester due to some extenuating circumstances in my second year of college.

- My worst semester gpa is for my last semester in college (6.7 out of 10) . This is due to the fact that I was part of a group of 30 out of 1200+ students who were given an opportunity to complete all their classes in 1 month (Fast-track semester) as compared to the standard 5 months and head off to an internship in a different city for the rest of the 4 months period.

I am not sure which one of these academic issues should I address in the optional essay. And explaining the reasons mentioned for all of them may sound like I am giving excuses. Please suggest how to mitigate this.

Even though I have a high Gmat with a perfect quant score, I belong to a highly competitive pool so I don't think this alone will go a long way with the adcom. Do I still highlight this in my essay?

Hi
I have done my PGDM from an average B.school SDMIMD, Mysore. I have 4 years+ work experience in one of the french petroleum company. Now I want to have another MBA through GMAT. and my undergraduate GPA is 1.7, where as GPA in PGDM is 2.63. What are my chances securing top 20 B school with a GMAT score of 710.

Plz let me know

bb StratusMBACounselor Any thoughts on my situation?

I think if that is the only exception in your application, you can easily leverage your optional essay, though I don't think necessary for such a narrow subject. However, I will let a qualified admissions consultant address this.

On a side note, here is a thread for you to consider: https://gmatclub.com/forum/who-here-has ... 20536.html

hi ZenYogi, so I do think that if you have a perfect quant score that is going to make some schools more forgiving of your past. In general, lead with your strengths. A brief sentence or two explaining what was going on when the poor grades came AND most importantly - what you learned from it that can ensure adcom that you will take your studies seriously and do well (offer support of perfect GMAT quant) is really all you want to do. I would focus on making the best application you can and you really want adcom to spend most of their time hearing about your accomplishments and great work and not calling attention to the grades. Yes they are there- no, you are not perfect. No one is. Just make sure you leave a trail that puts some context of what happened but don't dwell on it or write a novel about it. Hope that helps! And for what it is worth- when you have the profile of top GMAT and lesser grades- look to those schools that are trying to up GMAT score- usually those in top 15-25 range as those schools are more willing to eat the grades to get the GMAT! The very top can get enough great applicants usually who have both top grades and GMAT....

ZenYogi,

You would have taken math courses other than ‘Mathematics 2’. If you did fine in them, that will also be looked into. Though I don’t think one ‘D’ will matter much in the overall scheme of things, there is no harm in explaining the extenuating circumstances briefly if that’s the only bad grade you have. But if it sounds like an excuse, better stay mum. And if you pull off a good GMAT score, these things will be pushed farther into the background.

asit267,

Although admissions to MBA programs is holistic and your work profile matters a lot, you’ll be swimming against the tide with low GPAs and GMAT at top 20 schools, more so as an Indian applicant. For you, GPA is water under the bridge, but you can still work on the GMAT.