I was wondering if it's too late to apply to a top school (Kellogg or Booth) since I missed the first deadline. I took the GMAT this weekend and scored a 660 (49 Q, 35 V) my GPA is around 3.3 andI have 4.5 years of work experience as a project manager. This site really scares me sometimes because it seems like everyone has had their plans already laid out and I don't want to apply if my chances of getting in aren't very good. I wanted to see if anyone thought it was worth it to apply for the second deadline? Thanks!
A strong Round 2 (January deadline) application still has a VERY good chance. In fact, most schools admit the bulk of their students in the January round. So you absolutely should go for it!!
Now, you are probably already aware that the 660 score is a bit low, particularly on the verbal side. It's going to be more challenging for you to get an offer at a school like Kellogg with this score -- challenging, but not impossible. It totally depends on the complete picture. You have the right amount of work experience for Kellogg and many other schools, but that GMAT score is low. What you might want to do is tackle the essays now and see how far you can get with them, and then retest the GMAT again as soon as you can in late December -- provided you have enough time to really prepare in a way that you'll be confident to get the score up. If you were even at the 680 level I would be less nervous (though obviously, the higher the better). But the entire decision does not come down to the GMAT score alone, so don't get all worked up about trying for a >700.
Bottom line, you're absolutely not too late for this admissions season, and yes there are lots of people who've been working on their apps for months already, but that doesn't mean you're already out of the game. It sounds like this would be a good year for you to apply, based on where you're at with your career, so see if you can get one or two applications done in the next six weeks. You wouldn't want to push out to a Round 3 (March deadline) app, as your chances would go down significantly then; if you don't feel you're ready for Round 2, then you could wait till next summer and start working on apps for the next season. But you should go for it now - you actually do have time still!!!
Let us know if we can help with other stuff - there's a lot of moving parts to an app and we know how overwhelming it can be.
EssaySnark
