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18 Nov 2019, 10:39
Kudos
Bookmarks
Say you’re applying to a reach school where the GMAT range might be a little, or a lot, higher than your number. What’s the best way to address that in your application? The answer is NOT “explaining it in your essays.” Unless there is a huge extenuating circumstance (fire in the testing center, you suffered a serious medical emergency during the test), a low GMAT should not be addressed directly. There’s really no excuse that will be convincing to the admissions committee. For example, here’s how some common excuses read to a skeptical adcom:
“My dog died the morning of the test…” “Then why didn’t you just wait and take it later?”
“A huge project at work melted down the week of my test…” “Then you should have studied earlier, recognizing the unpredictable nature of your job.”
“I have anxiety about big tests…” “Then how are you going to cope with high-stakes tests in the MBA or stressful moments in your later career?”
This test is important, and B-schools expect applicants to take it seriously. A low score that is perceived to be the result of sloppy preparation or poor scheduling isn’t better than a low score due to low verbal/quant ability—that’s just shifting the blame from one MBA-relevant trait to another. But just because you don't directly address your GMAT in the optional essay, doesn’t mean you can’t use your essays to mitigate its effect on your admissions chances.
The key to explaining a low GMAT is recognizing why adcoms care about the GMAT in the first place. You’re not going to be doing high-stakes standardized testing as a businessperson, but you will face stressful situations that require strong quant and verbal skills. The GMAT is a proxy for those situations. If you didn’t do well on the test, we need to prove that you can still apply impressive reasoning and English language abilities in the “real world.” The GMAT is the commonly agreed upon (and easiest) way of proving that, but it’s not the only way.
First, recognize the weaknesses your low score communicates. Most people do worse on one part of the test than the other: If your problem area was the verbal/writing side, then you’re signaling to the adcom that your English skills might not be up to snuff. To address this, you’ll want to focus your essays on vivid examples from your work experience where your ability to write and talk to people in English played a key role in solving an important business problem. Did you convince a skeptical audience to agree with your controversial proposal? Did you deliver an impressive presentation that secured a $X million sale? Did you write a report that transformed the way your company does business? By telling stories like these, you show the adcom that you can deliver excellent “verbal” or “writing” performance, you just didn't quite manage it on testing day.
If the problem was the quant side of the test, the stories you tell will be somewhat different. You’ll want to foreground your quant prowess: the time you found a flawed assumption in a report or business practice that no one else had noticed, or the business opportunity/efficiency you identified using some new, more detailed mathematical model. Be careful about appearing too technical (MBA programs are looking for managers, not “IT guys”), but make sure the adcom knows your leadership decisions were grounded on a strong quant foundation.
Through your choice of story in your MBA application, you can show that the GMAT result was an outlier. Ninety-nine percent of the time, that approach will be more effective than an explanatory note in the optional essay. If you have any questions about explaining a low GMAT (or any other topics), reach out below!
“My dog died the morning of the test…” “Then why didn’t you just wait and take it later?”
“A huge project at work melted down the week of my test…” “Then you should have studied earlier, recognizing the unpredictable nature of your job.”
“I have anxiety about big tests…” “Then how are you going to cope with high-stakes tests in the MBA or stressful moments in your later career?”
This test is important, and B-schools expect applicants to take it seriously. A low score that is perceived to be the result of sloppy preparation or poor scheduling isn’t better than a low score due to low verbal/quant ability—that’s just shifting the blame from one MBA-relevant trait to another. But just because you don't directly address your GMAT in the optional essay, doesn’t mean you can’t use your essays to mitigate its effect on your admissions chances.
The key to explaining a low GMAT is recognizing why adcoms care about the GMAT in the first place. You’re not going to be doing high-stakes standardized testing as a businessperson, but you will face stressful situations that require strong quant and verbal skills. The GMAT is a proxy for those situations. If you didn’t do well on the test, we need to prove that you can still apply impressive reasoning and English language abilities in the “real world.” The GMAT is the commonly agreed upon (and easiest) way of proving that, but it’s not the only way.
First, recognize the weaknesses your low score communicates. Most people do worse on one part of the test than the other: If your problem area was the verbal/writing side, then you’re signaling to the adcom that your English skills might not be up to snuff. To address this, you’ll want to focus your essays on vivid examples from your work experience where your ability to write and talk to people in English played a key role in solving an important business problem. Did you convince a skeptical audience to agree with your controversial proposal? Did you deliver an impressive presentation that secured a $X million sale? Did you write a report that transformed the way your company does business? By telling stories like these, you show the adcom that you can deliver excellent “verbal” or “writing” performance, you just didn't quite manage it on testing day.
If the problem was the quant side of the test, the stories you tell will be somewhat different. You’ll want to foreground your quant prowess: the time you found a flawed assumption in a report or business practice that no one else had noticed, or the business opportunity/efficiency you identified using some new, more detailed mathematical model. Be careful about appearing too technical (MBA programs are looking for managers, not “IT guys”), but make sure the adcom knows your leadership decisions were grounded on a strong quant foundation.
Through your choice of story in your MBA application, you can show that the GMAT result was an outlier. Ninety-nine percent of the time, that approach will be more effective than an explanatory note in the optional essay. If you have any questions about explaining a low GMAT (or any other topics), reach out below!
18 Nov 2019, 10:43
Kudos
Bookmarks
Admissionado
I had an allergic reaction to Dust during the test and it could not be addressed so my score fell from 760 in practice to a 700 on actual day
I used additional essay to write that
29 Jul 2024, 04:49
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