Hey elgreco1,
Thanks for reaching out to me. I am not sure that I follow your logic. You said that your application is strong, then you followed up by telling me that you have a 680. With all other factors being reasonably equal - strong work experience, GPA, personal characteristics – that tells me that there is a deficiency in your application (the GMAT).
I do not think that your GMAT score will exclude you from being seriously considered, but you put the members of the admissions committee that actually like your application in a tough position. Now they have to go to bat for you, and the conversation will start off like this – "elgreco1 is a great applicant all around, and even though his GMAT is a little low ..... yada yada." Then another admissions committee person will step up and say "Well, I think DDiggler96 is a better fit because he has similar work experience, but a 730 GMAT score, and you know that we need to protect our numbers - so we should really go with DDiggler96." Admissions committee members like certainty. They do not want to have to make up for your lower GMAT score by letting in 1 or 2 other socially inept knuckleheads with 790 GMAT scores.
What I would have recommended is to submit the application, and in the optional essay explaining that you will be taking the GMAT again. The onus would have been on you at that point to actually score higher.
Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti
elgreco1 wrote:
Hi,
I applied in Round 2 in Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Columbia. My application is strong, especially in the work experience part. The only problem is I took the GMAT only once and only got a 680 (Q47, V35), and I had to use that score in my application.
Questions
a) how strong chances do you think I have with that lowish score?
b) if I retake the GMAT on January 28th, do you think I could submit my new (higher) score to these schools? Would they accept it? I am sure I would score 700+
Thanks!