possible_phd wrote:
I largely agree with anonymousegmat. Your quant score is good, but until your overall score is in the 700+ range, your odds at any school in the top 30 range are pretty low. In addition, you will need 3 recommendations for most programs, and a manager will not be a good choice. If at all possible, get ALL academics.
I will slightly disagree with him about MBA GPA, though. As an MBA, myself, I definitely agree that most of the classes are pretty easy; however, it tends not to be grade-inflated like most other graduate programs. My MBA program didn't have A-F grades or a GPA, but we were on a similar scale that ran from "No Credit" (NC) to "Distinction" (DS) that cannot be converted to a GPA. That being said, if you tried to convert my grades into a GPA of sorts, it would look pretty crappy, but not because of poor performance.
Why? Well, for one, we had many classes with optional final projects or papers. If you chose not to do them, the highest you would get in the course was a "Pass," which is right in the middle of our grade distribution, so you might be tempted to view it as a C. Some might say students taking this option were lazy or uncommitted, but in reality, taking the optional Pass in an easy course of no relevance to your intended career allowed you to focus on more analytically rigorous electives and their final projects. So for instance, in a global macro "perspectives" course that was largely just a very basic overview of how global economies work, there was a very detailed and rigorous final project that was optional. I chose not to do it, because I was taking the most rigorous electives we offered, and I had more important projects in those courses. Rather than write a paper on China's economy, I was able to focus on building a Monte Carlo-based inventory optimization tool in Excel for a Decision Modeling class, and I was also able to do some data mining and regressions on music sales to investigate whether social networking website metrics could be used to forecast album sales and came up with bundling strategies for another class. I got Distinctions in these courses, but just a Pass in my global macro perspectives course, even though I aced the midterm and final. So is that really a bad grade? Not in my mind, and not in my school's mind, which is why the transcripts specifically say our grades cannot be converted to GPAs. I think having this flexibility makes for a better learning experience.
So I don't know how adcoms will view low MBA GPAs. I think on the one hand, they understand situations like this, since they teach MBAs. On the other hand, if your low scores are in the RELEVANT courses, then that will probably be a problem. A sub-3.0 GPA in an MBA program with a C in stats is bad news.
Just my rambling two cents...
I just wanted to say that most of my posts may seem negative or harsh, like I am trying to keep people out of PhD programs... and to be honest, in many ways I am, because I don't think people even have a clue of what lies ahead of them. I think too many people are either:
A) trying to avoid the "real" world - to which I would say the "real" world is a cakewalk compared to a PhD program
or B) trying to ride out a bad economy b/c they got their MBA at a bad time - to which I would say you are better off financially working in an entry level job and then trying to build your way up as you ride out the recession.
I'm just getting my masters in statistics, in a more applied program rather than purely theoretical... but still the workload is unfu*king believable... (it would be bearable, but I am working part time, tutoring part time, serving on the board of a student organization and trying to squeeze some time in for my own personal research.... in other words... i am sort of modeling the life of a PhD student/Professor). It is f*cking torture... but don't get me wrong... I am loving every minute of it!!!
I just don't think most people have the determination and drive and intellectual horsepower to live this kind of life.... and this is a LIFESTYLE folks its more than a job.
anyway, i think possiblephd has the type of response that you need if you have a bad grade on your transcript - and he showed that he has already attained a good footing in his field. this is the kind of stuff you need to be coming to the plate with kids. if you can't hang with this kind of stuff... your toast.
i don't think your GMAT score is all that bad though; if you are able to develop some real knowledge on a topic and find a professor doing research on something you are interested in.... it is up to you to convince him that you can be a productive researcher. i think that can overcome a lot, since ultimately the people who make these decesions are professors not administrators... but maybe I am fooling myself b/c i only have a 710. I dunno - at some point adcoms have to look beyond scores and think about who can get some work done.
Anyway... possiblephd... you seem to know your stuff... why fiddle around w/ Excel? Get your hands on SAS or R and start rolling with the bigboys :p