HARVARD TURN DOWN an 800?

Why not concentrate on getting a high average in your undergrad studies right now. Once you have received you Bachelor's degreee why not concentrate on getting a decent job. THEN.......while you are working study for your GMAT. There is absolutley no point in taking the GMAT while still in your undergrad program, unless you plan on getting accepted straight into an MBA program without work experience. However, by the time you are eligible to apply to an MBA program they will all most likely require at least 2 years of full time work experience.

yeah but if i get a 800 gmat, or a high 700, I can be a shoe in at University of Chicago or Northwestern, I am in IL, I'd like to be done with shcool by 24, and be an investment banker, but I know u have to be a 2 yr analyst, then go to business school, but hell i'd rather skip the MOFO thing.

I could do both I plan to tak etest my senior year, so i got 2 yrsa to study, so ill accumulate the knowledge and bam, wam home run.

well 800.....at harvard, well consdiering what is the likelyhood of an 800, 1 in 10,000? maybe? 1 in 5,000? It's rare. It would look good on anyones resume.

Very lofty ambitions...best of luck. Here is a question you will get at an interview...."What does and Investment Banker do?...".

Lots of people want ot become the next Gordon Gecko.......not too many will get there.

Also, the difference between a 800 and a 740 is probably just like a 4.0GPA and a 3.95. Or maybe more like the difference between getting 12km/L of gas and 11.9km/L on your car.

The top priority at Harvard is not GMAT. All they want to know from the GMAT is that you can keep up with everyone else and not be a detriment.

In fact, if you know you can get an 800...don't do it. You'll have to prove to schools that you're not some weirdo that just studies 10 hours a day with no social skills.

760 or 780 = highly ntelligent
800 = nerdy weirdo

Stanford admissions committee once said that more people with 800 GMATs apply than there are total spots. Their average is still in the low 700s however.

If you want to get into Harvard, you better demonstrate that you are a real leader in every aspect of your life and your community. They explicitely state that they don't want to create leaders, but that they want to develop them.

Nike...it doesn't sound like you know what top b-schools really look for or what the experience is really about. It's not like undergrad admissions. Getting in is all about your essays, your life experiences and how you interact with people. You should go attend an info session when Harvard visits or go participate in visit day at Chicago or Kellogg.

Ha Ha. You crack up up.

Dude. You are not being very realistic.

Getting an 800 is not as easy as simply studying hard. If it were, there would assuredly be many more 800s. Anybody can work hard. Only a few people are born "gifted". I think getting an 800 means that you need more than just a little bit of the latter. Given that you got a 560 on a practice exam, i think you need to be more realistic.

Of course, it is not impossible. Let's assume that you DID get an 800. What makes you think that you are a shoo-in for the top B-school? The average age of an incoming B-school student is about 27.5 years old; i.e., average incoming student has 5 years of solid work experience with demonstrated leadership qualities or potential). All the top B-schools want people who will contribute real-world experience to the class. An admisions officer will ask himself (or herself): 1) What can this student contribute to the class experience? I can tell you that I learned as much from my fellow students as I did from the professors when I was in B-school -- what would I learn from you?

Why do you think Harvard will automatically accept someone with no work experience and a 3.5 GPA (a 3.5 is not very impressive unless you went to a top school in a tough major like Engineering)? I don't know if you knew this, but up until recently, Harvard did not even consider GMAT scores -- this might give you a clue as to how much weight they (and presumably other schools) give the GMAT alone.

The GMAT is just one small piece of a multitude of consideration for the few coveted spots at a top B-school, where the admission rate can be as low as 10% of the total applicants. I would concentrate on combining any GMAT score with solid work experience and a high GPA.

Hey, if you do get an 800 all power to you! I'll be the first to buy you a beer.

Best wishes.

NO. This is very wrong. The difference between an 740 and an 800 is HUGE. The difference between a 740 and a 750 is already large; i.e., there are only half as many people who get a 750 as those who get a 740. Let's suppose for arguments sake (and this is not unreasonable as aptitude test percentiles tend approach a logrithmic scale at the upper regions) that at this level, every 10 point increase means 1/2 as many people have that score. This means that you are about 30 times as likely to get 740 as you are to get 800 using this conservative estimate. I think the odds are even greater than that -- 750 is the 99%ile. I understand that getting an 800 is about 10000 to 1 which is something like saying it is 100 times tougher than getting a 750 and 200 times tougher than getting 740.

800 scores are special and extremely difficult to get. 740s are almost commonplace by comparison.

You really have a lot to learn, dude.

A GMAT score of any level is never a shoe-in ANYWHERE. They look at your entire application, which includes work experience, your essays, recs, etc. A GMAT score can not get you in, but it can keep you out.

It's damn near impossible to get an 800 on the GMAT. Extremely rare that people do. Two years of studying for the GMAT won't get you an 800, but it will burn you out. People who get 780+ don't get those scores from intense studying; they get them because of an innate ability, the math skills of a math major, and the verbal skills of an English major.

Top 10s will take students who have as little as 2 years' experience, but that really is a minimum - 3 or 4 is even better.

Do more research about the process, and be more realistic about it. By all means set your sights high, but you clearly don't understand the process and what's truly important yet, and if you apply without that understanding, your chance for getting admission is going to be much lower.