is 700 not enough?

Question

Hi, 
I have read comments about people who wanted to get a score of almost 800! Ok, I want that too.
But I think that the final outcome of getting 800 or 700 won't be different for your admission. The adcom won't be impressed if you have the highest score in the story of GMAT. The adcom only uses this test to verify if you are intelligent enough (IMO, an score of 700), no more. Then, they will pay more attention in your grades of college, essays, work experience and extracurricular activities.

Why do I mention this? Because maybe we spend too much time in this exam in order to get the highest score, when that time could be used in writting better essays or preparing for the TOEFL, whose new version is more difficult :s. In other words, we must think strategically.

Correct me, If I am wrong.

Thanks!

vwjetty · Answer

agreed. I am definitely not aiming for the 700+ score. I think I'm the only one though haha. Don't worry, there's an under-achiever in us all :-)

Financier · Answer

Metallifacan,
 With all my respect to you,
I must admit that I used to think the same way as you do when I thought that I'm not that smart to achieve a decent score. Honestly, this is a loser's way of reasoning and I did throw it out. Whatever you call it - "strategic planning", or smth else, the true name is laziness (we all are guilty, at least partly, of it).

You know what? Other things being equal, adcom would choose that guy with 720 rather than me with my 690. Will I be satisfied with such outcome? No! That's why I've stopped all my private life and funny weekends in order to substitute my 690 with 730 next month. I want to be admitted. In a good school.

Jeanette · Answer

like many things, it's a diminishing return on your investment. Going from a 680 to a 700? huge jump in your chances for admission at a top school. From a 700 to a 720? You'll probably still get a significant but reduced boost. From a 720 to a 740? It probably helps some. A 740 to a 760? You're starting to talk marginal returns. A 760 to a 780 and a 780 to a 800? Probably not getting much.

And that's why it doesn't make a lot of sense to retake from a 720. You'll spend a lot of time studying that could be spent on other things (essays and real life, for example) for not that great a return.

And that's why it doesn't make a lot of sense to retake from a 720. You'll spend a lot of time studying that could be spent on other things (essays and real life, for example) for not that great a return.

klughing · Answer

It's because people are used to the belief and still believe and want to believe that high score will guarantee you admission.

suyashjhawar · Answer

I too fell 700 Plus that is the 700 club member is good enough.After all one can always work on his/her essays,extra curricular and convince the panel.I have many friends who have got ISB rejects at 750 and few who got them converted at 670,680 etc.So it depends from person to person.

bakfed · Answer

While it's true that a 700 is good enough for any school, as we can see from all the publishings from all top b-schools that 700 is within the range of admission purpose, the higher the score, the easier it would be for an admission. Simply by looking at Kellogg's admission rate, students with a 740 or higher are in the highest admitted range. Should one be happy and content with a 700? I certainly would like to think so. However, would anyone fret about a higher score than 700? I doubt it. I personally have a 700 and I do not believe that it will keep me out of top b-schools, but would a 780 compensate for some of my other lackings within my application? I completely believe so. Therefore, I think your reasoning makes sense to a certain degree, but one can definitely see the increase in admission percentage of people being admitted with a 740+ compared to students with 700.

Financier · Answer

Sure, you can convince HBS with only 670 in your pocket, even with 660 :-D

! But the probability of such outcome is negligible

, unless you are have founded 2 billion dollar company.

shaselai · Answer

depends on "enough". is 700 "enough" for 20+ ranking schools? sure. is it enough for top 5? well it is about average (maybe lower) so it is up to the applicant really. Same thing can be said about gpa - is 3.6 vs 4.0 both "enough"? I guess it doesn't really matter in the end since it depends on the adcom. I would agree 750 is "enough" compared to 800 since they are both 99%. Also you have to self reflect a bit - do you think you gave it all or you think you can do better? If yes then do try retake unless you are at a point the rewards not worth as much as the time (like 730+).

@metallicafan
when you taking your test?

@metallicafan
when you taking your test?

u0422811 · Answer

I think the correct way of thinking is can any single aspect of your application be enough?

There is obviously more things everyone can do on every single aspect of their application. Will a perfect score get you in guaranteed - no way.

Will an amazing job be enough - (unless you are some sort of professional (meaning successful) athlete/actor/model/musician, started a huge company, or did something truly-truly astonishing) it wont be enough

Will all the volunteering in the world get you in - no (but with the same extraordinary caveats as above).

It is becoming increasingly difficult to get into a top b-school. Therefore every little bit helps. That being said you obviously cant obsess over one aspect of your "resume" if that will result in others parts being impaired.

shaselai · Answer

true to that. But people emphasize on gmat more because the things you mentioned are already "set in stone". GMAT , Essays , interviews are changeable so more emphasize on those. GMAT opens way for interviews as well so i would def rate that higher.

metallicafan · Answer

Hi Financier,
yeah, I expected that probably some people could understand that I was being lazy. But believe me that I'm not lazy at all. I wake up, and I study. In lunch, I eat very fast, and then I study again. In the night, after work, I study again. In weekends, the only thing I do is studying!. I don't have a date since 10 months ago!, could you believe that?

My point in the original post is more related to timing. How much more time should I spend in studying? Always, you can do something better. But you have to stablish the limit in order to focus on other aspects of the aplication.

Cheers!

shrouded1 · Answer

I am not very experienced with B-school apps, but I would be scared to believe that such a scenario is indeed true. In my mind, any sensible ad-com should use the GMAT as a mere filtering tool at best. So you get 1000 apps ? You want to "weed" some out, cut off GMAT scores below 600 maybe. You might miss some good candidates, but you are unlikely to pick up a lot of bad candidates either. I don't think a test like the GMAT has the potential to fulfill any greater purpose. I might be wrong, but if I am, it would leave me pretty disillusioned about the admission process that someone gives a lot of weight to this test score.

As an example, I remember a few years ago sending applications to top PhD programs in the US, a degree far more technical than the MBA and arguably needing better math skills and maybe even verbal skills (you would be teaching and writing a dissertation at the end of it) to complete. Yet the GRE score was nothing more than a filter. You needed to get maybe a 1350+ just to make sure the big schools don't filter your applications out; but no one really cared if you got a 1450 or 1500 or 1550.

I guess I am making more a philosophical point, if an ad-com chooses a 720 over a 700, that seems like a completely random thing to my mind. I really hope that is not how telling a GMAT score turns out to be in the end

vwjetty · Answer

I love the amount of over-achievers in here. I don't call it laziness. I just call it common-sense.

Jeanette · Answer

Well I doubt it's often the case that an adcom looks at two candidates, one with a 700 and one with a 720 and then picks the 720 just based on that. But to think that it's simply an on-off switch is just silly and does not comport to the reality of admissions.

Womiwom · Answer

I personally believe that a 700 is "good" enough. As most of us on this forum know, your GMAT score is only a part of the application process. I completely understand that a 750 gives you an advantage over someone with a 700, and even more so with someone with a sub-700 score. Again, it is only one part of your overall presentation to the adcoms.

For me, scoring a 700+ is more of a personal goal for myself. The schools that I'm targeting would take me with a 600, so I'm doing it for me more than anything else. The many people in this forum who have scored 700+ have given me the inspiration to do the same.

shaselai · Answer

if the gmat were such that it can be overcame by "studying hard" then anyone can get 700+. Some people are not very good at it even if they have great gpas. Some people "peak" at certain scores so I dont think it is due to "laziness".

shadow · Answer

short of being an adcom, how would you possibly be qualified to make such a definitive statement?

shaselai · Answer

yeah he did say everything being equal so the gender, ethnicity and other factors are the same so the only "advantage" one of the other is the gmat..... so what would be the reason for the adcom to pick the lower gmat applicant?

shadow · Answer

essays, letters of rec, interview, luck, etc. the truth is, no one really knows why / how adcom pick people, but to make blanket assumptions like "a person with a 30 point gmat advantage is always going to get in over the person with the lower score" is merely perpetuating a faulty assumption as a given truth.

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is 700 not enough?

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