With your current experience and scores, Miami and Notre Dame are reasonable (with ND being a slight reach). If you plan to retake the GMAT, there is no need to apply to schools before you have that score. I would wait until you get the score before submitting in case you improve.

The other schools you mentioned would definitely be reaches for you right now. How could you bring them within your reach? Improve the GMAT quite a bit or get more and varied work experience. If you want to get in this year though to any of these programs, your story should be extra tight in terms of the motivations for applying for an MBA at such a young age. If you want to talk about this more or get additional advice, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

Hi,

If you wait till December 10th then you will loose precious time and even if you improve your GMAT score then, you will end up submitting your applications without much groundwork and thought. To avoid this I would suggest you to simultaneously start your applications soon along with GMAT preparation. May be you can start with Notre dame. Duke, UCLA, Wharton are highly ambitious schools, you can try B-School Selector tool for right school suggestion by clicking here https://goo.gl/LVWTay

Regards,
Manish
www.genedmba.com

mfranchise wrote:Hi Experts,

GMAT: 660 (Q49 : V32 : IR6 : AWA4)
GPA 3.54 overall/ 3.7 Major(Finance)
24 years old, White Male
1 year of Work exp: Merrill Lynch - phone representative
Series 7 , 66 registered
3month internship at a Private Wealth/Portfolio managed fund

Not much leadership experience.

I sent my scores to:
DUKE
UCLA
MIAMI
WHARTON
NOTRE DAME

I wasn't too happy with my GMAT score, I was hoping for 700+.
I did sub-par on the verbal section and i'm planning on retaking in a month.
I have already applied to Miami(most realistic school for me)

1)I'm just wondering what my chances are for these schools?
2)2nd round deadlines are around January 5-15th. Would it be wise to apply first with the 660, then have my secondary GMAT scores sent after my retake at a later date (December10th)?

Hello

Duke, UCLA and Wharton would certainly be dream schools for you with a 660. Since you are applying with lesser than average work experience, I suggest you really beat the GMAT and score a 750+ because for these schools you will be competing with students who have 730 odd gmat and 4 - 5 years of work experience. Tell me about the extracurricular activities you were a part of during college and as a grad student. Leadership experiences, initiatives and achievements during college could make up a little bit for not having enough work experience.

You can probably apply to Miami and Notre Dame with the current scores. I suggest you apply to Duke, UCLA and Wharton with a much better score in R1 next year. This would add another year of work experience and give you sufficient time to draft strong applications. Use this time to make your profile stronger. Are you involved any extracurricular activities or volunteer work as of now? If not, I suggest you do something about it. Retaking GMAT now and applying to Wharton in January will give you very little time for your essays and a rushed application is not a good idea for any of the top 10 schools.

This e-book can probably help you better understand the important components of a B-school application https://www.interviewbay.com/blog/6-comp ... pplication

Hope this helps

All the best
www.InterviewBay.com