Aximili85 wrote:
So the subject might scream "NO you idiot", but here's where my dilemma lies -
GMAT History: 640, 640, 710
My M scores have been consistently low in the real GMAT, in the 41-42 range, in fact my last 710 score was M42 (58%), V45 (99%). Now my problem is that most good US/foreign B-schools will ding me with a 58 percentile in math. However, I was scoring consistently well in the last 5 practice tests I took prior to the GMAT (GMAC - M 48 two days before, and Manhattan M47-49).
A family member contacted a faculty member of Duke Fuqua and India's ISB, and they both said the math score would definitely be a strong basis for booting me off. A student at Wharton said the same when I blogged on their forum. I'm targeting schools like Duke, Berkeley, Ross MI, Columbia, ISB (India), INSEAD (France), and maybe one Singapore MBA if the US economy is still tanking in 2 years.
I'm from India, and am applying for fall 2013, so I have some time. I will have 5.5 years of work exp by then and will be 28 (by then).
Work Experience: 2 years in advertising as account servicing, and will have almost 3.5 years with Mckinsey & Co. as a Research Analyst in US Healthcare (have received a Distinctive Performance rating last week for this year as well). They are relocating me to Costa Rica next month to unofficially "mentor" the junior analyst team there, and if I perform well, they might give me an official Team Leader position by 2012 year-end, so will probably have the leadership experience by the time I apply.
My question: I have good work experience, decent extra curriculars, but my current GMAT history and Math score are bringing me down. Confidence is definitely an issue with Math, where I tend to freeze up when I see the first question. Practice test scores are good, so I know if I can build up my concepts I can crack this, but it will take a huge amount of effort before June, that too while I'm in a new country trying to pick up Spanish. Do I absolutely need to rewrite before June (before the new section comes into play)? I can not let this hinder my getting into the schools I've chosen above. I'm torn, I got the last 710 score in August, so have forgotten a lot and will have to factor in a drop in Verbal (99% took a lot out of me to achieve).
Please advise!
In my opinion, if your current score is unacceptable to your target schools, it may not be a bad idea to re-take. (Until and unless you have an extraordinary story to make up for the low quant score. Good work ex is found in abundance among MBA hopefuls.) If you do plan to re-take, there MUST be a substantial improvement. 750 and above will be good. In fact, if your Quant is above average, your very high verbal score will give you an advantage over others who have very high Quant and above average Verbal.
As for: Do I absolutely need to rewrite before June?
Of course not! There will be people taking GMAT after the June deadline too! Since you work as a research analyst, my guess that is that you are good at handling data. Check out the IR section. You might find that you ace it without any effort. You should plan to take GMAT before June only if you are very uncomfortable with IR since new material will require more effort. At the end of the day, take the test when you feel most prepared. That said, set some timeline so that your prep doesn't linger on for months without any outcome.
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22 Dec 2011, 22:36
