As you can tell, I am having a real hard time getting myself to do any real work today...
sudden wrote:
based on the information available, it is reasonable to conclude that once you are above average in one category, the adcom turns its attention to other aspects of the application as you have effectively "cleared the hurdle" in that category. your competency has been proved -- the relative degree of compentency above a certain point has a deminishing positive impact on your application. a 790 will not save you from deficiencies elsewhere. if you have a 790 and perform well in every other relevant category, bully for you -- you will probably get in, but not because you earned a 790. success in the process is not dictated solely by your GMAT score. the schools are adamant about this, and even if you do not trust the commentary that comes from the adcom, it seems obvious that the schools could have average GMATs closer to 750 if they wanted to. yet they do not, because GMAT is only one part of the equation.
I disagree. Most all candidates have some relative deficiency in an aspect of their profile and hence have to be relatively exceptional in another aspect to compensate. This can come from work experience, extracurricular activities, or academic dimensions. A GMAT of 790 certainly fits the bill as an exceptional academic dimension and I do believe it can compensate for weaknesses in other aspects. Just as exceptional quality of work experience (I was talking about quality not length of work experience earlier) can compensate for a low GMAT score.
sudden wrote:
additionally, i am not sure that a one school sample is enough to base a theory upon. kellogg is at the low end of the m7 (sorry guys, i know some of you love kellogg) and is, as business schools do, trying to climb the ranks. it's natural to think that kellogg would have a penchant for higher GMAT scores as it tries to improve its rank and relative prestige. alas, we are limited by the available data here. i suspect, for what it's worth, that you would see a different trend at harvard. you would probably also see a difference within applicant demographics.
I agree with all of this. We are certainly working with a dearth of quality data.
sudden wrote:
in terms of being above average in other categories, i suspect the same rule of thumb applies. 9 years of work ex with a 3.0 and 600 GMAT score probably will not get a person into kellogg. that person may have a lot of experience, but they "fail" in other categories, and the additional benefit of the extra work ex is not enough to offset those failures.
Again, I was talking about exceptional
quality of work experience not
length. Low GMAT scorers are regularly admitted based on exceptional work experience.
sudden wrote:
i acknowledged that there may be a small statistical difference. certainly the score that is 30 points higher should be given additional weight despite the random elements involved. the data you have provided indicates that higher scores are priveleged, and this seems reasonable and intuitive. the disconnect is that you are basing your entire argument on the easily quantifiable data rather than on the subjective aspects of the applicant pool that cannot be measured. it's not possible for us to prove that someone with a 760 should be accepted over a similar applicant with a 730 every single time. is the higher score applicant accepted most of the time? perhaps, but we can't tell. this is business school, not a pure measure of academic merit (see law school). it's tempting to try to prove something with the limited data set available, but in the end we cannot prove anything. the process remains a black box.
I agree that it is a black box and nothing can be proven with the available data. However, it still seems logical (and the limited data seems to support) the fact that higher GMAT scores imply better candidates. This in no way implies that it is the only, or anywhere near the most important, criteria used.