Good day and thanks for taking the time to read my post.
You're welcome. I'll respond inline to your questions.
High level overview of my key stats:
GMAT: 670 (Q44, V38) .. first attempt was 620
GPA: CGPA of ~3.1 Hons BComm from solid Canadian Uni.
WE: Approx 3 years in financial sector. However, predominatly in customer service and admin support roles.
EC: All centred around fitness/sports.
Volunteering: Basically non-existant.
Recs/Essays: Both should be very polished. Especially the essays. I have plenty of time, am a good writer, and am taking the steps to ensure they are gold (bought a book, plan on paying admit consultant to review, etc)
Please consider Accepted when it comes time to choose a firm for MBA essay editing.Target schools: Mostly tier 2-ish Canadian Bschools where the 2009 avg accepted GMAT scores range from 610-620.
My gameplan was essentially to have a knockout GMAT score that would help overshadow my weaker GPA & WE. Is approx 50 points above there average enough to achieve this? Or would another kick at the can to try and shoot for 700+ be neccessary? I have mixed feelings as I would love to take another shot at the beast but am concerned that if I don't score higher than 670 then adcoms may overlook my top score and be spooked by a score downtrend, even if they advertise themselves as only looking for the highest score.
I think your strategy is sound and while a higher GMAT can't hurt, your fifty points will make you a more attractive applicant to schools with average scores around 610-620.
Also, do AWAs play any role here? Do they carry any weight whatsoever? Or do adcoms only looks to see if its a sub-5 score as that may be a red-flag indicating poor writing skills? Do adcoms have access to see that content of your AWA essays?
yes to the last question. However, the schools may look at your AWA to see that they same person who wrote the AWA writes the MBA essays, but it is generally the least important section of the GMAT. Obviously a 1 will hurt, but unless you really bomb, I wouldn't worry about it.
I'm not sure what your familiarity level is with the Canadian Bschool scene is, but any feedback and/or suggestions would be much appreciated.
TheSituation
Again, given the schools you are targeting, your strategy makes sense to me.