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Waitlisted and Still waiting...

by Hardaway7 » Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:18 am
Hello!
When I originally applied to schools R2 I received a 620 GMAT (42Q and 35V) I decided to retake last week and received a 640 but this time my quant dropped to a 35 and verbal went up to 42....

I am concerned about the drop in my Quant score- i went from 66% to 42%! I took various quant based classes in college (stats, matrix and models, intermedia macro econ, management sci) and receive As and A- but not sure how helpful that is. I have a reading disability that makes standardized tests VERY challenging.

I have been waitlisted to NYU and updated them on my score recently. Should I try to take a quant class this summer at a college? Not sure if that will help since I already did well in my undergrad math classes.

Still waiting on Yale...

I am 28 yr old female
5 years of major consumer mag. marketing
2 years retail partnership marketing
Undergrad: Business mgmt and Pol. Sci double major 3.7 gpa
strong volunteer activities since college


Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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by Graham » Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:24 am
Dear Hardaway7,

Thanks for your post!

While I agree that you are in a bit of an unorthodox situation with your GMAT fluctuation, my suggestion is that you focus on the positive, rather than the negative in this case - and submit a supplemental essay/statement to your schools to underline it. Let me explain:

Your first score looked like this:
620 TOTAL - Math: 66%, Verbal: 77%

Your second score looked like this:
640 TOTAL - Math: 44%, Verbal: 96%

As such, rather than focusing on the drop in your quant result, why not focus on the fact that you boosted your overall score by 20 points, and aced the verbal section? For example, my sense is that if we hypothetically combined your 96th percentile on the verbal (from test #2) with your 66th percentile on the quantitative (from test #1) you would have a total score of at least 680. That clearly takes you into competitive territory in the applicant pool - even though we cannot technically combine scores (most schools don't allow it).

In short, why not let Yale (and perhaps other R2 targets - assuming they accept supplemental materials) know that you've put forth the effort and retaken the exam to boost your score. In the letter you should elaborate on the fact that despite your general difficulties with standardized testing you have been able to perform competitively in each area of the exam, albeit on separate sittings of the test. As I indicated above, most schools will not allow you to officially combine pieces from two different scores, but making the argument can certainly help your case from a psychological standpoint with the adcom reader.

As to whether or not you should enroll in a quantitaitve course to help ease any fears the adcom may have, it's actually hard to counsel you in this regard without seeing your full ugrad transcripts and getting a sense of your level of exposure to foundation courses like calculus, statistics, accounting and economics. Feel free to contact Clear Admit directly at [email protected] if you'd like to send along a resume and have a free session with one of our counselors. There may be other steps you can take to help your WL chances at NYU.

Best of luck,

Graham
Graham Richmond
Clear Admit, LLC
[email protected]
215 568 2590

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