bb wrote:
I Find this post especially helpful, this was taken from Princeton Review's Board July 2002.
I haven't been on this board for a year or two and have some new perspective regarding GMAT scores as graduation draws near. Admittedly the evidence backing up some of my assertions is anecdotal, but some may find it interesting nonetheless.
1) The GMAT doesn't predict performance very well in an MBA program. I know quite a few people in my program with what are considered "low" scores (590 for instance) that have been on the deans list every semester. Additionally, some of these folks have gone on to bag some of the most sort after positions with top notch consulting firms for instance.
2) High GMATers can typically be elusive. Many of the highest scorers in my class were not what I considered team players. A generalization? Sure. But my experience with ultra high folks was that they wanted to do their own thing. Also by elusive I mean their lack of success in being present during 2nd interview rounds. In general, their interpersonal skills held them back as much in the give and take of a case classroom discussion as in their interviews (a guess since I wasn't in their interviews...)
However, I can think of some notable exceptions to this observation, with some top GMATers scoring awesome jobs.
3) Most of the strong leadership folks at school are only average scorers. High GMATers were not to be found in positions that required alturistic uses of ones precious time in Bschool. Take from this comment what you will. Also, I really don't know why this is. Certainly it could be because 790's are a lot rarer than 680's, but now that I know the individuals personally behind the scores its clear why the "average" folks are leading and the others aren't.
That's all I'll share for now. Rip this apart if you will. Question my school (its an excellent one) if you want. However, please understand I don't have an ax to grind against top scorers. Rather, these are just some observations made after 2 wearying years at Bschool. Bottom line: True success in Bschool (academics, leadership, job) is not defined by a high GMAT.
Best!
I tend to agree with AkamaiBrah on this issue. I think it's really statistically spurious to say that 750+ scorers are selfish jerks or wallflowers or whatever and those with less than 600 are all wonderful people. I can spend hours and hours on why the kind of anecdotal observations used to make generalizations about high scorers vs lower scorers are flawed, but I think everyone on this site know enough about statistical logic to figure that out.
However, I will make these two points:
(1) Some schools will tend to have more 700+ scorers than others and -- by definition -- there will be relatively fewer 700+ scorers in the overall B-school population. If anecdotally someone observes less 700+ scorers doing something or the other, it seems more logically plausible that this is because there just aren't that many 700+ scorers out there in the first place rather than that 700+ scorers are something or the other.
(2) Some of the negative comments re 700+ scorers can be interpreted as saying something like 'Hey, they're just a bunch of eggheaded nerds.' Again, 700+ scorers are going to tend to be -- although there will of course be exceptions -- smarter people. As most of us should realize by now, many very intelligent people aren't as boisterous and back-slapping as their less intellectual peers (of course there are exceptions either way).
Putting the idea out there that high scorers are wallflowers just reinforces the negative stereotypes that are out there that tend to disproportionately
hurt foreign and immigrant applicants that tend to be intelligent and relatively reserved compared to the non-immigrant American & Western cultures.
While the GMAT isn't the fairest way to select students for B-schools, you got to ask yourself what alternative is fairer? What college fraternity you were in? Family wealth and influence? Cocktail party skills (rather than intellectual ones)?
Let's not give people who tend to be bigoted toward intellectuals and/or from other cultures any more excuse to hold on to their wrong-headed attitudes. Like AkamaiBrah said, there are a lot of great high scorers out there and there are some jerks out there too ... but that's true of ALL categories of people. Let's not develop some unreasonable stereotypes about high scorers, low scorers, and people in between.
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15 Jan 2003, 01:21
