Inquiry from an admitted student re application mistake

Launched September 22, 2008
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:34 pm
GMAT Score:760
Hi, I am very happy to say that I have been admitted to my MBA school of choice. Thanks a lot for your inputs. They truly helped a lot.

After much celebration, I turned sentimental and browsed through my MBA Application form - one of the many I spent sleepless nights crafting. To my surprise, I realized that I actually entered my GMAT component scores incorrectly in the application form.

My Overall GMAT score was correct, but I mistakenly interchanged my Quant and Verbal scores.

My scores should have appeared as follows:
Overall: 760 (99%)
Quant: 49 (88%)
Verbal: 45 (98%)

But i typed it as:
Overall: 760 (99%)
Quant: 45 (98%)
Verbal: 49 (88%)

Careless mistake, I know. But clearly, this was an honest mistake, given that the raw scores as typed should have had different percentile figures. Likewise, I also sent my official scores to the school, and they should have it in their records.

My question, therefore, is this - is there anything for me to worry about? I mean, could it be possible that the basis for the admission was the self-reported percentile scores? And a correction of this, regardless of reason, would endanger the decision?

Or does the admission committee verify reported scores prior to decision? I know for a fact that a verification process is impending, and I am not sure if this will raise any red flags.

At any rate, do you have any suggestions on what I should do, if anything?

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by Graham » Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:36 am
Dear Bughaw,

Thanks for your post and congratulations on making the cut at your target school!

I'm sorry to hear about the mistake you made when entering your GMAT scores into the online application. I agree that this sounds like a totally honest mistake and is likely nothing to worry about. This is particularly true in light of the fact that the flip-flop doesn't really paint you in a dramatically different light (your overall score of 760 is so high that the individual percentiles are both very strong - no matter how they are applied).

Having said that, I strongly suggest that you put together a short letter - business letter format is appropriate - and email or fax it to the school that you will be attending to alert them to this mistake. You can explain it just as you have done in your post here and indicate that although you've sent official scores, you just wanted to be sure that they knew of this inconsistency. You can also ask them to contact you if they have any questions about the matter, etc. By doing this, you will ensure that everything is above board. As I said, there is a zero chance of their rescinding their offer of admission based on this, but I expect they will applaud your honesty in reaching out to them.

Best of luck,

Graham
Graham Richmond
Clear Admit, LLC
[email protected]
215 568 2590

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