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I scored a 710 yesterday with a fairly low verbal score. I guess I must be the only student who was falling asleep when doing the verbal section.

I would really appreciate a evaluation of my profile and advice on whether I should retake the GMAT or invest the time in the essays instead.

Some background information about me.

-Female
-27 Year old
-European citizen with roots from Asia. Moved to Europe when I was 10 years old.
-MSc. Electrical Engineering
- 3 years of working experience.
Started as management trainee at a multinational company.
Worked with technical support and project coordination
Currently as project manager leading a small team.
Worked abroad 5 months.
- Fairly large amount of international exposure. Junior high and high school at international schools. Studied a year abroad during university. Even work involves many contact and interactions with people in the global organization.
-Extra-curriculum: co-founder of a student organization at university. Active AIESEC member. About a half year involvement in a club after I started working.

Target school:

MIT
Stanford
Berkeley
Wharton

Area of interest: product management, management of technology, operations management

Hey, post this in "ask admission experts" forum.

precisionessay wrote:This is a tough call.

I would say apply and see what happens. If you are going "Top schools or bust" as seems from your school selection, just applying to those schools is a bit of a risky endeavor, i.e. you are taking a risk of not getting in anywhere. If you are flexible (or would be willing to be flexible in round 2) then you should do quite well. I think the Euro-Asian background and Global experience will help you greatly, and being female will be preeeety advantageous.

My gut instinct: go for it! You can test and test and retest, but ultimately what will get you in is not 10 or 20 points more but great stories, clear goals, a unique application, and a promise of future success. And maybe it's just time to jump into the water.

Thanks for your input Jon!
Could U pls just elaborate more on being flexible? I am actually targeting for round 2.
But I found out yesterday that Berkeley has 4 rounds while MIT only has 2 rounds. Kind of ruined my planning

prodizy wrote:Hey, post this in "ask admission experts" forum.

Oh dear Still the wrong place to post?

*eek!* Sorry, but EssaySnark shudders at the 'apply and see what happens' advice. Bschool admissions is strategic. Ending up as a reapplicant because you didn't plan things out carefully the first time through is no fun for anyone. (We have people coming to us every year because they just threw stuff at the wall to see what would stick ... and nothing did ... and they're heartbroken that they didn't get in.) Probably that wasn't what was intended by the comment but it freaks us out to hear it.

That being said: This is a strong profile. A 49Q is *awesome*; a 35V is low but probably not "too low." The rest of your background is totally bschool-relevant and potentially very interesting. EssaySnark would be *thrilled* to be working with a client like this because of all the doors it opens for you.

You do not have to retest to raise the verbal; the schools will see your language skills from the essays, the AWA, and from the TOEFL (which you probably have to take). You *might* consider retesting (after you've had enough coffee!!! ) only because it would probably be easy for you to raise your overall test score to the 730+ range, which would help you stand out from the other engineers. But, there are fewer female engineers, so already you "stand out" from the pool. Note that it would do no damage to your chances to test again so if you're up for it, and you really apply yourself to boost the score, then why not? (Testing 2x can only help, not hurt; even if you scored a bit lower than the original 710 it would not hurt you.)

So the net-net advice of 'go for it!' is fine but please, do so with careful consideration of strategy at every step! For other people with this same GMAT score, the advice might be different based on the other elements of their profile.

On the round question: Try for Round 1 if you can. There's no reason to delay it; you should not push out to Round 2 just to take the GMAT again, any boost in your score would not be that much of a benefit (a 730+ would be marginally additive, not significantly). So if it's a tradeoff between retaking the GMAT and applying later, or applying now with your existing 710 score, you should do what you can to apply now (especially to MIT). You can get more info on round strategies here: https://bit.ly/qZFTsD and of course if you have other questions, feel free to ask!

Good luck with it!
EssaySnark

essaysnark wrote:*eek!* Sorry, but EssaySnark shudders at the 'apply and see what happens' advice. Bschool admissions is strategic. Ending up as a reapplicant because you didn't plan things out carefully the first time through is no fun for anyone. (We have people coming to us every year because they just threw stuff at the wall to see what would stick ... and nothing did ... and they're heartbroken that they didn't get in.) Probably that wasn't what was intended by the comment but it freaks us out to hear it.

That being said: This is a strong profile. A 49Q is *awesome*; a 35V is low but probably not "too low." The rest of your background is totally bschool-relevant and potentially very interesting. EssaySnark would be *thrilled* to be working with a client like this because of all the doors it opens for you.

You do not have to retest to raise the verbal; the schools will see your language skills from the essays, the AWA, and from the TOEFL (which you probably have to take). You *might* consider retesting (after you've had enough coffee!!! ) only because it would probably be easy for you to raise your overall test score to the 730+ range, which would help you stand out from the other engineers. But, there are fewer female engineers, so already you "stand out" from the pool. Note that it would do no damage to your chances to test again so if you're up for it, and you really apply yourself to boost the score, then why not? (Testing 2x can only help, not hurt; even if you scored a bit lower than the original 710 it would not hurt you.)

So the net-net advice of 'go for it!' is fine but please, do so with careful consideration of strategy at every step! For other people with this same GMAT score, the advice might be different based on the other elements of their profile.

On the round question: Try for Round 1 if you can. There's no reason to delay it; you should not push out to Round 2 just to take the GMAT again, any boost in your score would not be that much of a benefit (a 730+ would be marginally additive, not significantly). So if it's a tradeoff between retaking the GMAT and applying later, or applying now with your existing 710 score, you should do what you can to apply now (especially to MIT). You can get more info on round strategies here: https://bit.ly/qZFTsD and of course if you have other questions, feel free to ask!

Good luck with it!
EssaySnark

Thank you Essaysnark for insightful comments!
I am actually dropping the thought of retake GMAT. As you mentioned, I still have the TOEFL to take and show them my verbal skills ( of course with a more lasting coffee dose this time).