Wow...

Come on guys. You guys are going overboard analyzing everything. Last I checked, 800>770-790.

It just so may have been that those rejected 800s were all burned out geniuses who had 2.0 gpa's or had zero (maybe negative) work experience. Maybe after they scored the 800, they figured they punched their ticket to bschool and bombed the essays.

Lastly, how many people making these statements that an 800 is detrimental, are sub 700 scorers? This is precisely the reason why the "shared experiences" section is filled with 700+ scorers. The lower scorers get intimidated by comments like this.

Folks, take a step back and see what you're actually writing. I'd rather score a 720 than a 770 . . .

I would still choose a 800 over a 770-790. I am sure if I put in a good app, I will be able to get into a top 10 school. I think GMAT score does play a pretty decent role in the recruiting process in some industries- MC and IB (someone more experienced could correct me here). I dont know how say a GS or McK will look at a 800, but I am pretty sure it would be make a significant advantage there.

I agree with kidderek and dosa-don. There's no way an 800 can harm someone's admit chances. Well, unless that 800 scorer starts taking the other parts of the application a bit easily (Taking an admit as his/her divine right). ps, An 800 will certainly help the applicant with scholarship and future IB/MC jobs.

For IB/MC, an 800 will definitely help you land a job in these industries because they place much more empahsis on brain power.



But for top business schools, I would rather have a 770-790 over an 800. When they see that 800, it just gives them reason to go over your application with a fine comb.

And if you have a GPA that's sub 3.4, they'll wonder what is up.

Imagine reading dozens of applications with scores ranging 650-750 and then you spot Joe Blow with an 800. In the back of your mind, you'll be thinking, "okay, what else does this guy bring."

There's always a stereotype that smart people are dull.

I have another theory. Every school has a statistics page. One of the key statistic shown is something like the following:

GMAT range : 600 - 780 Middle 80% 660 - 740

Now I think that B-Schools make pretty decent money, by encouraging as many people as possible to apply. If this statistics page showed an upper range of 800, it would be pretty darn intimidating for someone with say a 650. A low scorer may think that he's got no hope in hell (not that I think 650 is a low score of course).

Every such applicant is a loss of 250 USD then and there for the school. Ultimately, every b-school has some idea of market psychology.

I don't get this. Can you please elaborate?

At least here in the US, people who are uber smart are generally thought to sit around with other uber smart people and talk about nerdy uber smart things and as such are socially awkward and don't know how to "have fun" by general population standards.

Here in India we see smartness as something different from intelligence. We see smartness more near to shrewdness than to intelligence.

You have a point. But I disagree. I think applicants are more brazen than you think. I think there are plenty of sub 670 scorers who apply to schools that they have a very minimal shot of getting into. They just assume, "Hell, they can't accept me if I don't apply. I'll give it a shot." That's the automatic ding pile.

I do agree that schools make some decent money from application fees. But, let's take some random numbers. (Nothing concrete, but prob close)Harvard's applicant pool size is 7500. Let's say they get another 1000 apps b/c they control the middle 80% of gmat. With a $250 app fee, that's an additional $250,000 to the bottom line. What is an additional $250,000 to any mba program that charges $80,000+ in tuition fees?

Not much, I'd say.

All that said, I think that once you cross the 700 mark, it meets the school's threshold. If they come across a score of 800, the adcoms will be impressed, but only for about 5 seconds. They move on to other parts of the application. But an 800 will always beat any sub 800 score and therefore be beneficial to the applicant.

I know what I will do after "getting into" - I will retake my GMAT for fun and try to get 800

haha

I think the high gmat scorers should consider re-taking the test and aim for a 710-730.

It takes tremendous skill to get an exact - 710-730 . It is extremely easy to miss this *golden* mark and score too high or too low

hahaha

by the way, what does bsd stand for? is it from Liar's Poker? "big swinging richard"

Currently stands for BSD - the operating system. Hoping to covert this to the *big swinging ....* from Liar's poker, post MBA

So you'll be the "Big Swinging Richard Lover" after B school?

I may drop the *lover* part

Lower scorers are intimidated by comments like this? That's a pretty condescending comment.