Scored 500 w/o studying...should I retake?

[sushi]

Hello,

I just took the GMAT on this past Friday. I am going to apply for admission to the MS in Accounting program at Northeastern Illinois University. Although this school has pretty solid programs for Business and Education majors, it's definitely not anywhere near the best, so their GMAT requirement is only 450.

Well, after being sidetracked a million times with mine and my wife's family and friends visiting from out of the country, in addition to obligations due to a return to my music career as a DJ (I took my last year of Undergrad off, graduated this past December, and returned to my career in January), I was unable to really get any studying in.

All in all, I skimmed some of the formulas for the Math portion of the exam to refresh my memory (since I took most of my Algebra and Geometry classes in late junior high/early high school) and answered all the practice questions on GMATPrep. I spent the night before the exam trying to decide if I should reschedule my exam date or cancel my scores after taking the exam. In the end, I decided the best thing I could do for myself would be to take the exam and not cancel.

Well, to my surprise, I scored a 500 based on the score given at the end of the exam. Even though I have always been horrible at studying and have either studied last minute or not at all for most of my Undergrad life, I somehow managed to pull a 3.0 GPA. I was sure that the GMAT would be the end of my being able to "skate through life."

My questions are:
-Based on my score, should I retake the exam and try to get into a better graduate school program?
-Do employers ever request GMAT scores?

[VP_Tatiana]

Hi Sushi,

Whether you should look at a different program depends on your goals post-graduation. If you have looked at the Northeastern program in depth, and if it looks like it will help you get where you want to go, don't get too caught up in rankings, etc. However, if you are worried that the academics won't challenge you enough, or won't cover certain areas that you feel you need to learn, then by all means, look around.

I think the best way to figure out if the program is right for you is to sit in on some of the classes, talk to current students, and talk to professors. You may want to do this with some other schools as well, so that you have comparison material.

You also need to consider your academic goals. Do you plan to "skate through" graduate school as well? Or, do you want this to be the time you give more focus to studying? If you anticipate staying as busy as you are now, you should consider whether now is the time you can meet your academic goals in the program you choose. If not, you may need to consider a less rigorous program, or postponing applying.

I have never heard of an employer asking for a GMAT score. If it was good enough for your school's adcom committee, they only care what school you went to, what you focused on, and what grades you got.

Best wishes,

Tatiana

[jiujitsubri]

I to want to enroll in a Ma- Accounting program at a school not ranked as a top b-school. My reason is only to acquire the accounting credits to sit for the CPA exam. I will do Ma and get more work experience and possibly later on in life study hard for a 700+ gmat and enroll in a top b-shchool MBA program. The reason being, this time in my life I couln't do a top mba program, and wouldnt want to do a lesser mba program and ruin my chances as schools are tough on allowing someone to get a second MBA

If your situation is similiar to mine, you're ok with the 500 score to get in the program and don't need to retake the exam.

Why kill yourself for a higher score if it is not needed.

IThat being said, if you decide to apply to a top school you'll need to retake the exam.

[sushi]

Thanks for both your responses.

Well, I'm still not completely sure what route to go with my career, currently. My whole reason for going back to college in the first place was to have something to fall back on if my music career came to an end. I find myself to be quite fortunate to have a "real job" as an Accountant because of my decision and timing. It was horrible seeing a good amount of my DJ friends go from 6 figure incomes to being reduced to taking up retail jobs when the economy went to hell.

Anyway, going back to college and graduating last December was what made me consider taking the CPA, which I would say would be my main focus of going to grad school.

The thing is, I've been told by many of my family members and friends that maybe I should consider a different major, solely based on the fact that I have less of a real interest for accounting (I'm extremely anal about everything in life, so I've made a good accountant so far due to my extremely high attention to detail) and I just do it because it sort of comes naturally to me and I find my job as an accountant to be fairly simple and straight forward. For example, I disliked taking financial and cost accounting courses, however I loved the classes that dealt with international accounting issues, income tax, etc.

Sorry this is so long winded, but this is exactly the situation I'm in -- I really have no gameplan. If I would've made this decision a few years ago, I probably would be less undecided than I am now, since security wasn't on the top of my list back then. I would love to take a career placement test now to see where I stand, since financial security is a huge issue to me now, since I have a wife and plan to start a family soon.

[VP_Jim]

I'm a CPA, so let me weigh in on this one with some career advice that's not really GMAT related.

Virtually no one that I've ever met is truly passionate about accounting. It's a good, steady job with high income potential and, if you do it right, some really good work/life balance. In other words, it's a relatively painless way to pay the bills. If you're content with this for a career - that is, if you don't need a job that you're passionate about, if you don't need to be super rich, if you don't need an exciting job, if you don't need people to think your career is "sexy", and if it comes easily for you - accounting may be a good career.

I was actually in a pretty similar situation as you are. I worked as a professional trumpet player for a year after college, before deciding to boost my income a bit and go to grad school in accounting. I've never regretted the decision. As I've gotten older (okay, I'm only 27 now, but still), it's been really nice having money coming in to go on vacation, dine out, buy a house, that sort of thing. Doing taxes isn't thrilling, but my job allows me to pursue my other interests in comfort and security - I still play trumpet in my free time, but I'm not eating macaroni and cheese for dinner every night and worrying about paying my electricity bill.

Finally, don't forget: accountants work during normal business hours, so you can still DJ on Fridays and Saturdays.

Let me know if you have more accounting questions!