Please evaluate my profile

[brucrewrat1]

I'm planning to apply R2 to at least four schools. I would love to have some words of advice in evaluating my profile.

Personal
- Male, 27 at matriculation

GMAT & Education
- Took GMAT last October, scored 700, with very low quant (Q42 - 61%; V44 - 97%)
- Managerial economics undergrad at northeast liberal arts college, graduated cum laude with 3.5 GPA and international term in Europe
- Very quant-focused coursework including 4.0 GPA in Calculus I, II, & III

Experience
- Will have almost 5 years experience upon matriculation at a well-known investment consulting firm, where work is heavily quantitative and analytical
- Have some international experience with said firm
- Leadership experience has been very substantial, managing people has been a strong point

Extra-curricular
- Volunteered teaching math to inner-city youths for 2 full school years
- Starting an online non-profit focused on creating awareness and raising research funding for degenerative brain disease

MBA Goals
- Hope to learn operational side of business to move into management/business consulting
- Want to work in organization that targets small to mid-size businesses and turnarounds
- Long term goals: take over family manufacturing business
- During MBA, want to build on strategic/operational skills to successfully leverage my current strengths and skills

Thinking of applying to Tuck, Kellogg, Darden, and Yale.

What are my chances at these schools, and are there any others you can suggest that align with my goals? I would like to focus on my essays and recommendations for the upcoming months, but I am thinking a retake of the GMAT might be necessary to improve my quant score. I have plenty of other quant experience, do you think a retake would be worth it?

Thank you!

[Stacey Oyler]

Hi,

Thanks for your post. In regard to your question about your quant score, I do think it would be worthwhile for you to retake the GMAT. Adcoms like to see an event split between quant and verbal, and they prefer the quant to be above 80%. The fact that you do have decent quant skills from your work experience could indeed help mitigate concerns about your academic ability, however it might also leave the adcom wondering why you didn't aim to improve your score given your background and experience.

The bottom line here is to apply when you feel ready. This may mean retaking your GMAT and applying in round 2. One way to decide how to proceed is to think about how you would feel if you applied with your current score and didn't get into the schools on your list. Would you regret that you didn't retake the GMAT? If so then it might be worth retaking and applying in round 2.

Best,

Stacey