Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Hi

I'm a 30-yr old Brit living in NYC.

I've taken the GMAT twice, and both times my score was 660 (best result was Q40, V41, AWA 5.5, IR 8).

I've 8 years of work experience, with 5 of that being in a leadership role running a relatively autonomous business unit for a mid-size multinational company.

The last 1.5yrs have been spent in the USA, setting up a new business for the parent company (previously I was in London).

I'm also now writing a book on marketing for the Financial Times, who approached me based on my work running this US business.

I'm looking to apply to schools like London Business School, Berkeley, NYU Stern, Columbia and UCLA Anderson.

I'm weighing up whether to apply in R1, or whether to have another crack at the GMAT and apply in R2.

What do you think?

Thanks for sharing your profile. Really interesting background, your GMAT is a bit low considering the school averages so you typically may be in rough shape but you do have some seemingly great work experience with some strong potential anecdotes. I think if you can translate these examples into some compelling essays you may be on the fence with your target schools. I would recommend taking another stab at the gmat to see if you can bump it up at all to give yourself the best chance at success.

Hope this helps!

I agree with Jon that you need to retake the test and wait until Round 2. FYI - I gave this same piece of advice to another poster who recently emailed me that his score improved from 40 points on the retake.
Check each of the school's mid-80 range in their class profiles. I think all of your target schools have the bottom 10% at or above a 660.

For example, Columbia only 10% of Columbia's class scores a 680 or less per https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/programs-a ... ss-profile.

Good luck,