pinchharmonic wrote:
My position is
if your work experience is stellar, gmat is moot.
if your gmat is stellar, so what, show me your work experience
For instance, if you are a director at google/fb/MSFT, I don't think the GMAT will stop you no matter how low. Just glancing at the EWMBA website, you can see their "flagship" students and see the similarities. Work experience with proven leadership.
So the way I see it is, they use work experience, which includes recommendations, as the primary filter. Maybe GMAT and GPA are used as tiebreakers and just assurance that they can handle the coursework.
I think statistically, in any given year, you will never get 240 of those "high-powered" candidates applying to Haas, let alone 240 of them saying yes. However, I think you can easily get 240 candidates with 700+ GMATS though. I guess you can say that's looking at it from a supply side perspective.
GMAT shows effort more than anything. If your work experience is stellar, it gives you more latitude as far as scores go, but it's still important. Being that this is a part time program, work experience factors in to the equation a lot more than a full time program, and that's why the avg GMAT score is ~20 points lower than the FT program. When it comes down to it, the GMAT is simply a hoop you have to jump through.
My thoughts on the admission process are this: You get one or two weak points in your profile. Any more than that and it's going to start raising eyebrows. If you have great WE and essays, but a 650 on the GMAT, you can overcome that. If however, you have a low gmat, good essays, and what could be considered decent, but not stellar work experience, you're going to be closer to a borderline candidate. This goes doubly so if you're in an overrepresented class like engineering. So, why would you waste your one 'gimmie' that the adcom will give you on a low GMAT score?
At this point in the process, if you're on the WL, the only thing you can really change is the GMAT score. Clearly pinchharmonic has more than an adequate score and once you're over the 700 mark it doesn't matter. However, if you're in the 600s, it's going to be a question that comes up when they're looking at your profile. Will it be the deciding factor? Probably not, but it's certainly going to be one of the factors.