740 (Q49, V42)... AWA??

[johngalt]

Hello. Like many of you, I took the GMAT recently and did pretty well. My score fell shy of my target, but I'm content and definitely do not plan on touching this crap again.

To follow suit and fill in the blanks... I mostly studied from Kaplan, Arco, Official Guide, and PP. My Kaplan test scores were frightening (550-650), and I almost abandoned any idea of going to b-school until I found some helpful commentaries on the accuracy of those scores. I bought five tests from 800score and did those... which I found too easy (770x2, 800x3), but helpful because of the built-in timing feature. The PP tests are the best practice really, and I got a 760 and 770 just a week before my test date... so my actual score was a bit lower than I was projecting.

Now, my question: How much does the AWA matter?? I would consider writing (prose) as one of my strengths, and so I did not spend any time worrying about those essays. The Argument one went fine, but the Issue one left me meandering on some inconclusive path that ended in an incomplete sentence (I ran out of time). I don't know my score yet, but I fear I might be cooked here. I'm hoping that my application essays will speak for my writing ability and that these will not matter... but I'd like a second opinion. As I'm shooting for only top 10 schools, I worry that there is not much margin for error.

Thanks for your thoughts...

[thaiva]

Hey Johngalt,

You are concerned about the AWA as you say you are shooting for the top ten schools and that is correct there is no room for margin of error my opion is pretty much the same as your one. Hopefully your application essays do speak for your writting ability and that these will not matter.

Best Wishes & Good Luck,

Tim

[alixjung]

How did you do in AWA?

When I was writing my Argument essay, I edited half sentence and did not have time to edit the other half. So, one of my sentence was making no sense, but, to my suprise, I got 6.0. I took my GMAT on 10/3 (Friday) and my score were printed on 10/6 (Monday). It looks like the only computers graded my awa.

[hellogmat]

Alix,
Today, the AdCOM from Stanford, at the online yahoo chat, mentioned that they use the AWA to judge whether the applicant wrote their own essay or not. They also discouraged use of essay editing services. I am confused about whether to use an admissions consultant or not. Additionally, when I read the write-up explaining the GMAT scores, I realized that the schools can request your actual essays and previous scores even the cancelled ones (I hope the ask for my cancelled score of 760 as well ;-)). I don't believe that AWA score is given much weightage beyond that. So, as long as one gets a score above 4.5, I think they are okay as far as the assessment of "academic potential" is concerned. I don't believe that a higher or lower AWA score will improve or hurt the chances significantly.
Deepak

[alixjung]

They also discouraged use of essay editing services. I am confused about whether to use an admissions consultant or not.

What is the difference to have your friends comment on your essays vs asking the essay editing services to give you a 2nd opion? I interpret Stanford's comments as: it is important that the essays are comming out of ourselves and we should not rely on editing services. There must be applicants paying an editing service company a package fee to do their work and ending up with a noticably unvivid application.