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MBA Watch stats....are they accurate?

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MBA Watch stats....are they accurate?

by stompy » Thu Oct 13, 2011 10:57 am
Not sure if anyone has brought this up...but I have been browsing the various school applicant stats on MBA Watch and I can't help but feel something is off. For example, on the HBS page, the average gmat score is 704, but according to ranking sites like US News it's closer to 730. (Stanford and Wharton have 710, which is also lower than what ranking sites are giving)

Why is there such a large discrepancy? (almost 30 points)

Is it that BTG applicants are different from the average regular b-school applicant? Or is it that schools over-exaggerate their own stats?

And most importantly, which is a more accurate depiction of the actual applicant pool?
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by essaysnark » Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:07 am
Hey stompy --

The MBA Watch stats here on BTG are compiled based on self-reported data from BTG members -- those are applicant stats (and obviously BTG has just a subset of all applicants - though probably the averages are higher here than in the overall applicant pool!).

The average GMAT score that HBS reports (730 last year) is of accepted students.

Hope this helps!
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by throughmba » Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:18 am
Its very good tit-bit. Be on beatthegmat and you can clear it with a lower GMAT score. Information is the king.

By the way its average of self reporting candidates present and quoting on BTG.
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by Jon@Admissionado » Sat Oct 15, 2011 2:14 am
Yep. Accurate as far as what people report. But the sample is perhaps not big enough to be entirely representative.
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by jamesacorrea » Mon Oct 22, 2012 12:26 am
Are you sure the sample wouldn't be large enough to be representative? In some cases the amount of BTG members reporting their score and indicating they plan on applying that year is over 20% of the number of total applicants (assuming that the number of applicants is the same or close to the same as the year prior). I didn't do very well in my college stats, but I feel like a sample size 1/5 of the total population is generally sufficient.

Now, what I would be curious to hear is why some suggest/think that the BTG scores are slightly higher than the actual averages. Anyone have any input on the selection bias inherent in the MBA watch forums? I suppose that would skew the whole sample, but, in what way?
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by essaysnark » Mon Oct 22, 2012 7:58 am
jamesacorrea, the schools' published average GMAT scores are of accepted students, not applicants. It doesn't matter how large a sample size of applicants are here on BTG, they're reporting different populations. There's *always* a lot more variation in scores (i.e., more lower scores) in the applicant pool than for those who matriculate in a top program.

As to why many people believe that the applicants who self-report on BTG would have higher scores: It's just due to the fact that they're here. This is a forum for helping motivated people boost their scores. Presumably a sizeable portion of those with lower scores aren't actively participating in resources like this, so the assumption is that the BTG population is skewed to the right at least a little. Plus, anyone who gets a good score likes to brag about it, right? ;-) They're more likely to self-report.

Great to see the critical thinking going on! If you have ideas to the contrary, let's hear 'em!

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by beatthegmat » Mon Oct 22, 2012 12:44 pm
Take the data with a grain of salt since it is self reported. But we have spoken to a lot of schools about their MBA Watch stats, and everyone we spoke to said that it's a decent sampling.
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by essaysnark » Mon Oct 22, 2012 12:52 pm
Good to know Eric!
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by jamesacorrea » Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:53 pm
I guess the question I was getting at is can I assume that the pool of applicants in MBA Watch is similar to the real pool of applicants (not to the pool of accepted applicants)? According to Eric, it sounds like the answer is yes, with a grain of salt. And that is good to know.

In my case, this is relatively reassuring since I notice how similar other applicant's "stats" are to mine, even for my reach schools. The numbers aren't scaring me away -- if anything they give me a bit of hope, and reinforce my decision to take a shot at that dream school.
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by Bschool2013 » Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:26 am
essaysnark wrote: The average GMAT score that HBS reports (730 last year) is of accepted students.
Accepted or Enrolled? I know with HBS's ridiculous 89% yield those numbers are close, but for other top schools where the yield is between 50-70%, there could be a bit of delta between the average score for accepted students and average score for enrolled students.
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by essaysnark » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:25 am
You're right; we should've been more precise when we posted that last year! Thanks for the clarification.
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