GMAT 650 - apply 2nd round, retake, defer to following year?

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Hello - I was planning on applying to columbia, wharton, Chicago, LBS, for starting fall 2012.

Background - 27yr old male, born in UK (London), half palestinian/half scottish (weird mix i know). Worked for bloomberg and pimco over the past 6.5yrs. Studied at Royal Holloway uni of london, economics, got a 2.1 degree equates to approx 3.2 gpa i believe. I am also a CFA charterholder.

Work exp - Bloomberg tradebook - cover multi asset class product selling into across europe as well as emerging europe, managed a book of up to $4mil.

- pimco - work with institutional investors provide information/stats/analysis on pimco $80bln trust across asset classes. Manage large project on EU rule implementation.

Reason for doing MBA - Want to move into equity analysis/research, broaden network.

Extracurricular - captain a football team in a league, arrange cooking events, organise global trips for classmates, participate work related charity events, learning arabic, managing stock portfolio for family and friends.

GMAT - 650, after 3 attempts. My latest giving me score of 630.

The problem - I was hoping to apply to the above schools first round, due to work commitments my gmat has been hampered even though i have been able to spend considerable time on it i still feel i can do better, most likely reaching a score close to 700, 680/690. My dilemma is given the competitiveness of the schools mentioned is it worth applying now in round 2 with this very low score or delaying it applying round 3 in feb/march with the higher gmat score? Or last option delaying it and applying to start fall 2013?

Any feedback advice is much appreciated!

Thanks,

Samir
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by Jon@Admissionado » Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:31 am
'Ello there my half-scottish half palestinain friend :)

Look, you work for a good place, you seem to have a solid finance background, it seems like you have a good shot, so why not give it your best? I feel from what i've read that you may be rushing things to apply this year. I mean, if you apply next year you gain a nice comfortable six months within which to retake that GMAT and study. Even if you don;t manage a higher grade, you will still gain the advantage of applying round one, and doing so comfortably, meaning giving yourself the good amount of time to make the BEST applications possible starting with the first release of the first application likely sometime in early June.
So unless you are in a rush for some other reason, I would say hold on to your horses, but start planning NOW on how to schedule your application for next year.
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by samir2562 » Wed Dec 14, 2011 8:25 am
Jon - Appreciate your feedback. After i posted my message i started reading some of the other posts and i think i am starting to come to that same conclusion. I had decided i want to do the mba only in late may, by time i started studying for gmat i was already behind. Like you say there are multiple advantages to me applying round 1 for 2013 intake. Ofcourse the only disadvantage is thats a little under 2yrs away! The only thing that concerns me with that is, although i will only be 28 upon applying, 29 upon entry, i would have around 8yrs work experience by entry. I get the sense US schools tend to look at candidates a little younger with less work experience.

Again thoughts appreciated!

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by chimni » Tue Dec 20, 2011 12:42 pm
29, 8 years is just fine. No one is going to consider you an 'old' candidate.

So I do not think that should be a worry.

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by Jon@Admissionado » Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:32 am
Nah, you won't be old. I can sense from your post that the biggest "problem" is that you would really really prefer to do it sooner. Buuut, the truth is, better to be real about things, and wait it out this time.
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Ping our satellite: 0884#&@-2#101101
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