The Application Process

Hi, I have been admitted to a B school but they have set me a condition to score around 700 in order to be accepted by the B school. On letter conferring the conditional admission the language used has been very positive in terms of appreciating the work experience and the company profiles that I have worked with. I am curious to know that what would happen in case I do not achieve such high score because work pressure has been affecting my preparations and I am not so sure of achieving this score. I also spoke to there then current student and he asked me to give it a best shot. But he has not hinted on the other side of the coin.

Kindly let me know whether anybody has faced this scenario and how it has yielded so far.

Experts may please give an opinion as well.

Hi GMATTER81,

I HATE when business schools do this to candidates. I think that conditional admission is fine for some aspects of an application (In fact, I was admitted to Harvard Business School with several milestones I had to meet before matriculating), but a higher GMAT score is one that I think is plain unfair.

If every part of your application is up to par except for your GMAT score, I think it is up to business schools to either outright reject the candidate because they just can't look past the low GMAT score or to accept the candidate and have them complete tasks that will address the weaknesses they believe the low GMAT score reveals (e.g. Take English language classes if Verbal is low or quant coursework if Quant score is low).

Now that I've finished my rant, I'd say that I have seen something similar to this with an applicant before. She received a similar letter from a prestigious international MBA program saying that they really liked her as a candidate but wanted her to have a higher GMAT score, and I honestly don't even know what ended up happening. She was exhausted of taking the GMAT and was feeling confused as to what to do.

One thing I'd like to point out is that conditional admission based on something you have so little control over is not a real admission at all. If you've taken the GMAT several times, done all you can to study, and STILL have not made a score they deem acceptable, you haven't been conditionally admitted; you've been kindly rejected.

I advised her to do her best in retaking the GMAT but to be prepared to apply to a variety of schools during the next application period. Your educational future is far too important to gamble with--and I truly believe that standardized tests tend to be an inadequate tool for measuring students' aptitudes, thus making it somewhat of a gamble for both AdComs and GMAT test takers. Obviously standardized test scores are useful in a directional sense, but creating a specific numerical hurdle a student must jump over makes little sense to me.

What about your candidacy will have really changed by you scoring 30-50 extra points?

I suggest you do any and everything you can to improve your GMAT score if that is your dream school. Otherwise, take your kind rejection for what it is and apply to other schools.

Kaneisha

Thanks!!! Well putting in all the effort for the gmat retake....lets hope I am admitted!!