wp06,
Your high-handed trash talking does no one any good. The only person who needs to "calm" down here is the one who is calling other people "stupid". Perhaps that flies in whatever quarters you frequent, but it's inappropriate language for a professional forum.
But then again, I think I seem to have figured out where you are coming from. Ever seen the movie "A Few Good Men"? You seem to have the Colonel Jessop complex. The complex that since you are serve in the army, civilians need to bow and allow you to brandish your arrogance around as if we owe you something. Listen, I appreciate what you do for the country, but staying true to the topic of discussion, you cannot deny - as much as you may have an incentive to - that it's eventually a holistic picture that is important, and THAT INCLUDES NUMBERS, period. Sure, you may have thought that it was a better use of your time to do army exercises while someone else designed engines, and others wrote poetry. You don't get to feel superior over anyone else for that, though. Besides, anyone only gets credit up to a point for a deficiency in candidacy. The fact is, while I empathize with you on how you've had less of a chance to prove your credentials at school or in tests, there will be other veterans who will demonstrate both credentials AND leadership. It's sometimes simply not an either-or, in such a competitive process.
And yes, of course you can compensate for one weakness with another. What you cannot compensate for is your arrogance, and the interview process will weed you out if you continue to demonstrate it. I am sorry if you take it personally when I highlight why Wharton (or any top school) tends to use rough guidelines such as the 80th-percentile test for the subscores - I simply pointed out a general mechanism used to test for the 'minimum' intellectual horsepower needed for the curriculum, not to take a shot at you. However, knowing that you fall short of that mark on your sub-scores, you already know that you can make up for it in other ways, though the odds will still be stacked up against you.
Your rant is not well received. My description of the process, as even anyone's sub-par reading skills should still help them verify, was that it is HOLISTIC. So that's perfectly in keeping with a wide range of GMAT scores. You just wanted to long post to sound like you are onto something revolutionary, so you can feel better - poor excuse for throwing around words like "stupid' to multiple people on the forum.
"What have you ever done to put yourself out on the line?", you ask me. I ask you, what the hell do you know about me to know whether I have put myself on the line or not? I just don't need to seek credit for it on public forums, my man. I did not claim that I had a great GMAT score, or any score for that matter - what I did claim was that I couldn't care less that you felt entitled to something extra because you spent your time "providing us the blanket of freedom we enjoy" or something of that sort. I appreciate your line of work, but I give no one license to be pissy. I am sorry that you are irritated that I acknowledge and accept a holistic process that values and emphasizes each element - how is that "narrow minded" on my part?
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. Xerox was right in saying that GMAT/GPA are the quantitative parts of "who you are' for the adcom, just like you were right in saying that leadership is the other important, qualitative portion of who you are. Don't be mad just because I called you out for being mean and arrogant, when you called him "stupid", and declared that only you somehow knew what the deal was, since you had "done your homework".
The homework you ought to have done in the army was to learn to show some humility.
25 Aug 2010, 18:29
. What a co-incidence. I choose that day for the pub too. Everything is in place now. 99% Confirmed I ll be visiting. lets see. 
