Hey, everyone. I hope you’re all having a good weekend so far. The submission below is from a reader who broke one of my “rules of engagement” by following up his initial email with another one basically asking me “Why is it taking you so long to respond?”…I thought about deleting both of his emails, but I found his questions to be interesting and possibly of use to others, so I decided to respond. The primary question that I answered was about the definition of “diversity” as it pertains to business school, particularly in terms of admissions. Most people assume that “diversity” refers to race only, but, in my experience, the meaning goes much further than that. His second question is whether he should retake the GMAT with a 720 score and a 5.5 AWA…you guys can probably guess what my answer was on that one.

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AJ wrote:

Hey Marquis,

Hope this mail finds you in good health. How is your work going? I am sure you won’t mind spending a tad free time on this post.

This is a prospective B-school applicant. Your blog makes a great read and I am enjoying it thoroughly since I put my analytical hat. I took a GMAT recently and scored 720 with AWA score of modest 5.5 (80%ile). The GMAT score break up is Q (50/94%ile) and V (37/81%ile). The low verbal score has sent the alarm bells ringing. Like most Indians I fall in Indian/IT/Male category and you can imagine the worrisome waves propagating through my nerve connections. The worry: Should I retake the GMAT? Do my academic+GMAT credentials motivate the adcom to read my application?

A brief overview of my profile:
Undergrad from NITK, Surathkal (usually ranked 6~11 among engineering colleges all over India) and have a CGPA of 8.05/10 and apparently was 8th in the class of 53 students (so that puts me in top 15% marginally). You might wonder 8.05 and 8th, well the department has absolute grading (only >=95 ensures perfect 10 in any subject). I will put 8.05 as somewhere around 3.6-3.7 on a scale of 4. Selected for Samsung GSP and got a fellowship to do Masters from Seoul National University, South Korea. Graduate program in Electrical Engineering with a CGPA of 4.15/4.3 (top 5%) and I have 3 international publications so far. So much for my academic credentials. Work experience of 2 years (by fall of 2011) in Samsung Electronics R&D in Korea as a Research Engineer.

Well I can’t really boast about my extra-curricular as I am still not in ‘writing essays’ state of mind and I have to dig deeply to awe anyone. I know GMAT+CGPA is one of the components, but for my (unfortunately competitive) demography do the credentials seem safe? GMAT+CGPA tell about your academic achievements. My GMAT score for my demography is quite low, as a few blogs and forums say, and I don’t know how should I treat my UG academics. Does my GMAT+undergrad say that ‘Hey! let’s read his application further’? Does my GMAT+undergrad+grad say ‘Hey! now his GMAT+GPA are unimportant let’s ‘?

My target schools are: Tuck, Yale, Darden, Ross, and Haas. I am pinning on the first three. Oh, I am aiming for class of 2013.

I apologize for such a long mail in our very first communication. Thanking you and waiting for your reply.

Regards & Have a nice day.

AJ

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AJ wrote:

Hey Marquis,

A few weeks ago (16 July) I had sent you a mail. My GMAT score of 720 (95%ile) with Q (50/94%ile) and V (37/81%ile) always bothers me. My demography is unfortunately with sky-rocketing GMAT scores. I have thought a lot whether the retake is necessary.

B-schools and students always talk about diversity and good stories. What is this diversity? Diversity in ‘what I want to do after MBA?’ or diversity in ‘why I need MBA?’. A good story…well over the years I have seen folks managing to get into Harvard, Stanford and MIT Sloan, and I have also seen folks who managed to get into Harvard but were rejected by other top B-schools. Does a good story to one school appear mediocre to another school?

I feel if I can awe myself then I can awe the adcom. I am carrying on with research about schools. Hope to hear from you.

PS: Well from my research I’ve seen most schools look for almost the same things but in different proportions and those proportions are not listed anywhere.

AJ

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My video response:

Questions about diversity and a good story for B-school applications from Marquis Parker on Vimeo.

Key points:
- My rule of thumb on the GMAT is not to retake it if one’s score is over 700. There are MUCH better uses of an applicant’s time in the process than trying to improve on a 700+ score (i.e. working on essays, developing the MBA story, chasing down recommendation writers)

- “Diversity” as it pertains to business school runs the gamut in terms of definition:
– Diversity of nationality and ethnicity
– Diversity of educational and professional background
– Diversity of reasons for pursuing an MBA
– Diversity of post-MBA career goals
– Diversity of life experiences and prsonal motivations

- In addition to the basics of a strong application (strong MBA story, educational and professional accomplishments, GMAT, etc.), B-school admissions teams look for fit in both their school overall and specifically in the class of students they’re building –> This is why some top B-schools admit certain candidates that other top programs reject