An excellent point that should be salient in everyone's mind is that schools take many students with GMAT scores below that school's reported mean. It is easy to become fixated on the mean or even the 90th percentile as the score that must be received. Of course, the same goes for any of the stat.s commonly used in admissions such as GPA and nominal work experience. Just about everything in admissions is negotiable if one presents a compelling case- I've seen students waive the BA/BS requirement, I've seen students admitted to major schools with abysmal GPA, low work experience, as well as students admitted with mediocre GMAT scores. Accordingly, it is a good idea to keep in mind that at least a few students are admitted from much of the entire applicant pool distribution at even the top cluster schools. Thus, it is wise to look at the 10th percentile, the mean, and the 90th percentile for all of the major admissions stats.
Note, however, that some schools have official minimum values for GMAT and GPA. For example, AGSM requires V25, Q35, AWA 4.0, overall 550; and a minimum GPA of 2.0. It is wise to take these requirements seriously.
https://www2.agsm.edu.au/agsm/web.nsf/Co ... quirements
Other schools "prefer" particular values (e.g. 550/3.5 40th percentile for Q and for V for University of Victoria). Again, it is wise to take these benchmarks seriously.
https://www.business.uvic.ca/009_FAQ/
Further, make sure to avoid the "explicit expression" trap >> simply because a school does not announce the presence of its cut off scores does not mean that they do not exist. Schools are reluctant to be explicit about having a minimum "cut off" score since this practice is officially frowned upon by GMAC and schools are under pressure to avoid seeming to place too much empasis on the GMAT. Of course, this does not completely dissuade schools from maintaining cutoff scores - they are just less likely to publish them.