Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense, United States, is widely believed to be the first person to score the perfect 800 in GMAT. If you Google ‘Robert McNamara GMAT 800’, you’ll find several articles and forums supporting this.
Is this true, though?
Or, is this just a folklore being passed on year after year.
Here is an example of strategy for an application with two major weak areas – high age and extremely low GPA. GMAT was above the median, but not too high.
For every Roger Federer, there are tens of thousands of tennis players whose games and faces go unrecognized. They don’t get talked about.
For MBA admissions too, tales of glories receive the most eyeballs on GMAT Club and BEAT the GMAT forums, relegating stories of outright disappointment (all dings) and underperformance (admission to not-so-stellar schools) to quick obscurity.
These stories of disappointment get some exposure, but what escapes our attention is that many of these applicants had the potential to avoid an all-ding scenario or get into a better school.
Haas School of Business doesn’t admit 80+ percent of applicants with 750+ GMAT score.
Proficiency (or lack of it) of your recommender in written English has little impact on how adcom evaluates your recommendation. After all, they are not judging your recommender’s communication skills.
As far as recommendations are concerned, adcoms primarily focus on content.
Probably, the best insights in this regard come from Stanford GSB. In response to the following two questions, they say:
You commit nearly $200,000 (not counting opportunity cost) for a two-year MBA program. Imagine, you struggle to land a job of choice after this investment!
Although this can happen to anyone, the chances of international students facing this is generally higher (relative to those with work authorization) at most schools, including the top ones.
You’ve an MBA degree and have worked for 4 years now, but you aren’t satisfied with your career- either you didn’t get the right opportunities post-first-MBA or, after few years, you found that this industry isn’t your true calling.
It’s now or never, and the best option that comes to your mind is doing a second MBA, preferably from U.S. or Europe.
But unfortunately, many international MBA programs don’t accept applicants who already have an MBA. Some accept with riders. And some unconditionally. But even those who accept, want to know why you are pursuing a second MBA, after all it’s not common. That way, they’ve raised the bar higher for you. Made an already competitive process, even tougher.
But it can be negotiated if you focus on the right reasons for pursuing a second MBA.
If you are a non-traditional applicant to MBA programs, you’re an attractive bet to B-schools, on the first glance at least. However, when they dig deep into your profile, they may have some concerns, which aren’t uncommon among non-traditional applicants.
If you take proactive steps to allay these concerns, you can be – even to your surprise – a strong applicant.
Ecstatic!
One step close.
After few weeks you receive your AWA score.
3.5.
Disappointed!
You start wondering, “How is 3.5 going to affect my odds of getting admission? And should I retake the test just for that?”
But for few exceptions, almost all schools require one-page resume. No more. And if you’ve worked for 5+ years, you usually struggle with fitting all your bullet points in one page.
Here are 11 ways you can squeeze out more space for accommodating those difficult-to-discard, overflowing bullet points:
