Dear Lisa,
Your advice for other applicants looks fantastic and I was wondering if you could help me. I just took the GMAT yesterday and scored a 750 (47q, 46v), much higher than I had been anticipating. Here's how I expect admissions officers to view my profile, that of a white 28-year-old:
PLUS: GMAT score, essays (I think, this should be a strong point for me, but I've just begun writing them)
NEUTRAL: GPA (3.3, English, top-30 college), Work Experience (research analyst in real estate 4 years, specialty insurance underwriting assistant one year).
NEGATIVE: Not much community service. I've just begun to contribute at a local animal shelter. Another more significant negative for me is that I dropped out of a math class in college, failing. I had done poorly on the first test, and missed the deadline to drop the class without my grade being recorded on my transcript. The most embarrassing part is that it was pre-calc. However, I did get a B in "Mathematics of Powered Flight" that same year.
I would be extremely happy to get into either Duke or UVA. I am thinking that NYU, Chicago, Kellogg and Harvard are long-shots. My plan is to take a statistics class very soon in an attempt to counterbalance that glaring "DF", dropped failing, on my transcript. All other things being equal regarding the quality of my application, would it make sense to delay the application until round two, in order to have time to complete the statistics class? Will the "DF" mark on my transcript be as concerning to admissions officers as I think it will be?
Any comments you have would be much appreciated.
William
Your advice for other applicants looks fantastic and I was wondering if you could help me. I just took the GMAT yesterday and scored a 750 (47q, 46v), much higher than I had been anticipating. Here's how I expect admissions officers to view my profile, that of a white 28-year-old:
PLUS: GMAT score, essays (I think, this should be a strong point for me, but I've just begun writing them)
NEUTRAL: GPA (3.3, English, top-30 college), Work Experience (research analyst in real estate 4 years, specialty insurance underwriting assistant one year).
NEGATIVE: Not much community service. I've just begun to contribute at a local animal shelter. Another more significant negative for me is that I dropped out of a math class in college, failing. I had done poorly on the first test, and missed the deadline to drop the class without my grade being recorded on my transcript. The most embarrassing part is that it was pre-calc. However, I did get a B in "Mathematics of Powered Flight" that same year.
I would be extremely happy to get into either Duke or UVA. I am thinking that NYU, Chicago, Kellogg and Harvard are long-shots. My plan is to take a statistics class very soon in an attempt to counterbalance that glaring "DF", dropped failing, on my transcript. All other things being equal regarding the quality of my application, would it make sense to delay the application until round two, in order to have time to complete the statistics class? Will the "DF" mark on my transcript be as concerning to admissions officers as I think it will be?
Any comments you have would be much appreciated.
William
