Hello! To answer your questions:
(1) This score to me feels like no-man's land. I really want to have a strong profile before applying to these schools but realise that I need a 720 score to be safe. I'm considering putting off the application for a year (even though I really don't want to) to give me time to improve my verbal score and build my extracurricular etc. The quant part of the GMAT seemed easier than on practice tests - at a stretch I think I could push this to Q50. What do you think?
Given how competitive these schools are, and given that you're still relatively early in your career, I do think that waiting a year and spending it improving GMAT and increasing your extracurricular involvement is a good idea(2) Does it matter what extracurriculars are on your application - are some more desirable than others? And does your ability/time doing it have an impact?
None are necessarily more desirable than others, though regardless of what you choose to be involved in, serving in a leadership capacity definitely helps. It's not as much about the time you put in as the impact you make(3) Is this score enough to challenge for a scholarship? What parts of the application, in your opinion, would be good to build upon to increase the likelihood of gaining a scholarship.
Merit scholarships are extremely competitive - generally, the Admissions Committees select scholarship recipients at time of admission, based on overall strength of profile. So, to be in consideration, you definitely want to boost that GMAT to 720+ and increase your outside involvement
Hope that helps!
PerceptiveLeaf wrote:
Dear team,
Please could you provide some advice on my profile?
Nationality: British
Age: 26
Degree: First Class Honours, MEng from Imperial College London. Think this translates into a 4.0 GPA
GMAT: 680 (Q: 49 / V: 34 / IR: 8 / AWA: 6)
Verbal is my weak point but I usually score in this range on practice tests anyway. I feel annoyed with this though because I was particularly flustered when I took this section first on the GMAT. It took me about 10-15 mins to settle in and zone out the noise in the background.
Work Experience: 1 year engineering experience in a Formula 1 Team (UK) & 2.5 years consultancy experience specializing in aviation, rail and infrastructure advisory (UK)
Extracurricular: Several activities before and during studies (e.g., Played squash, badminton, cricket, football etc, school magazine editing, volunteered a lot a few years ago); currently minimal - just play sports for leisure with work colleagues.
Post-MBA goal: Most likely to stay in the same area or move to client side. That would mean working for banks, asset management firms or pension funds who are looking to invest in infrastructure.
Schools:
First choice: Wharton, Chicago, MIT, Columbia, Berkley Haas, Kellogg
Lottery tickets: HBS & Stanford
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Questions:
(1) This score to me feels like no-man's land. I really want to have a strong profile before applying to these schools but realise that I need a 720 score to be safe. I'm considering putting off the application for a year (even though I really don't want to) to give me time to improve my verbal score and build my extracurricular etc. The quant part of the GMAT seemed easier than on practice tests - at a stretch I think I could push this to Q50. What do you think?
(2) Does it matter what extracurriculars are on your application - are some more desirable than others? And does your ability/time doing it have an impact?
(3) Is this score enough to challenge for a scholarship? What parts of the application, in your opinion, would be good to build upon to increase the likelihood of gaining a scholarship.
Thanks a lot!
=)