nothanks wrote:
I have a couple of points and questions:
1. These scaled scores drive me crazy!!! Does anyone have any idea how scaled scores are used to determine your total score??? Unless this board has quite a few liers (which I do not believe) then total scores can vary 10-20 pts seemingly for no reason at all.
2. A few responses...
"The response to your original post is that even at places like Wharton and Stanford, probably 30% of the people have GMAT scores below 700, so if in fact the rest of your application is perfect you have a chance."
Is this accurate? I do not know the exact break downs of these particular schools but if we take X top school that has a mean of 700 generally the breakdowns seem to be a bell curve like breakdown, no? That is just as many people got 500-699 as 701-800. Am I off on this point?
Well, your bell curve isn't a bell, 500-699 is 200 about points and 701-800 is 100 about points. The bell curve at Stanford and Wharton would be more like 650-780, with a peak at 715-720 and scores on either end being outliers.
Stanford has a median of 720 and an average of 712. Wharton 710 & 714. Let's just call it about 715 - and the rumor is that Stanford (and possibly Wharton) underreports their GMAT scores so they do not scare off potential applicants in order to keep their yields up. But even if that is not true, we can still analyze the numbers based on 715.
If the mean is 715, then 1/2 of the scores are between 715-780 (there just aren't many 790 & 800 scores even at these places). If it is a perfect bell curve, then the remainining 1/2 of the scores would be between 650-715, with the great bulk of the scores right in the middle, 700-730.
But as we all know, people with score below 650 do get admitted, and within certain demographics it is not that much of a rarity. So to offset say a single 630 score, you'd need to admit 6 people that scored 730 in order to maintain an arithmatic mean of 715. The simple fact is that there is much more room below 715 than above 715, so to account for a few scores substantially lower than the average you'd have to admit many scores slightly above the average.
Now, take the elements of the analysis above (people can disagree if they'd like, but I haven't seen anything that makes more sense): 1. a bell curve dictates that the great bulk of the applications will be around the middle at 700-730 and the fact that a small number of very low scores will need to be balanced out by a larger number of somewhat higher scores and I think it's fair to say that at Stanford and Wharton, fewer than 30% of the people admitted have 690 or less.
nothanks wrote:
"Let's not forget, however, that some 20,000 people will achieve 690 or better and each and every one of them would probably love to be at Stanford or Wharton (as would we all), so there's no doubt that flawless is an understatement to get one of the 300 or so seats available to those that score below 700. Keep in mind that virtually every single one of those 300 seats will be given to under-represented minorities."
As a Hispanic candidate I have a certain interest in this statement. I completely disagree with your point. I know several people of heavily represented pools who got sub 700 scores and were accepted to top schools. I also know many underrepresented minorities with AMAZING profiles and 700+ gmat scores.
"If you are a male Caucasian/Asian (non-under-represented)/Indian, then you better be named Trump or Kennedy or something. "
Or you better not be exactly like the other people of your group. I believe schools want diversity in every sense of the word. They want bankers, lawyers, accountants, engineers, non profits, entrepreneurs, government workers, soldiers, teachers....... I know of an Indian with a low 600 who got into HBS. How did he get in? He was a non profit dynamo with an amazing profile. Not your typical Indian candidate.
First of all, I'm not talking about "top schools". I'm specifically talking about Stanford and Wharton, so let's not muddle the subject. As I said above things are different at other schools. And undoubtadly, there are under-represented minorities with stellar scores and accomplishments that would be admitted irregardless of their demographic. But that does not change the fact that an overwhelming majority of the low scorers that are admitted are under-represented minorities.
In other words, if you have a great score, great greades, awesome experiences and tons to contribute, it doesn't matter what your demographic is. Comments like "I know of..." mean almost nothing. There are outliers in any situation, and a 650 GMAT doesn't mean you will be rejected automatically. It does mean that unless you have done something of monumental proportions, you will be summarily rejected from H/W/S if you are cuacasian/asian/India, but will receive serious consideration if you are black/hispanic/inuit.
The numbers bear this out. I do not have statistical information regarding the GMAT, but I do know that for law school and the LSAT, there is literally no cross-over between the LSAT scores of preferred minorities and other admitted students at any of the top law schools other than Harvard. The simple fact is that virtually every single highly qualified preferred minority applicant gains entry to Harvard, and the other schools fight for whats left over, which means that at a school like Michigan (stats published because of the lawsuit), there was something like a 10 point difference in average LSAT (probably equivalent to 100 points in GMAT scoring). There's no reason to believe that business school admissions is any different.
Also, I'm not arguing for or against the system. A diverse class is a good thing, and it's clearly something that the schools are looking for, and they know best how to delivery a great education. I'm just pointing it out the facts as they stand. If someone is in a crowded demographic and their GMAT is 30 points below the average of a school, they need to look reality in the face. Crowded demographic can mean various things, but most often it relates to ethnicity. I challenge you to find a reputable admissions blog that doesn't continually stress how difficult it is for the Indian IT demographic to gain admission to top business schools. They don't talk about it because it's fun or something. They talk about it because it's a fact of life that their average GMATs probably needs to be 30 points over the average because the pool they are competing in is huge and high scoring. An under-represented minority, by definition, is competing is a far less crowded (and less competitive) group.