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Anyone can give me suggestions, please? (from a frustrated student :( )


ccb

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Hi~ Thanks for reading this:) Hope you will have a nice day today.

 

In short, I got:

- strong gpa in undergrad and grad with several scholarships

- two conference papers (First-authored and co-authored)

- IELTS 7.5

- over 15 months part-time research assistant experience

- exchange experience with a research project

- HOWEVER, A POOR GMAT (640)

 

I have wasted some chances before in taking GMAT and now I only got 2 chances left this year. I do not know whether I should take it again in Jan. My 640 was obtained in Sep. I didnt work on GMAT since Sep (because of heavy school work) and I do not know whether I can get a higher without practices.

 

As it is almost the deadline for most of the schools, I do not know whether I should still apply with this profile.

 

Anyone can suggest any schools for me with this profile, please? or should I apply it next year?

 

P.S. Marketing- Consumer Behavior

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If I were in your shoes, I would wait and apply next year.

 

Your profile seems excellent, except for the GMAT score. Right now, you would need to be lucky enough to find a school that doesn't care about the GMAT score. Nearly impossible to say which ones are like that, and possibly none of the best schools. And that's a shame for someone with your profile.

 

If you apply next year, you will have time to really prepare for the GMAT and get a decent score. Then, you will have a very strong application, with no obvious weaknesses. Then, you will have a very good chance of getting into a top school. I think it is worth waiting 1 year for much better perspectives for your whole future.

 

People are already getting interviews and you are still asking for school recommendations.You were concerned about deadlines to send the GMAT scores. It doesn't look you are ready to apply this year. Don't do a messy application in a hurry. It is a very important step youy are taking, do it right.

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My head tells me the opposite. If you are not very keen on going only to top 20 schools, then it is worth trying this year at mid tier schools. One of the forum members here at Urch had a very strong performance last year despite similar scores because she had a great profile. GMAT is just one of the factors and may be worth applying this year given your research profile looks good otherwise.

 

Some schools would tell you to improve the score and reapply, if they like your profile. There are schools that might desk reject, but it might be worth trying at few schools this year as you never know what is in store in the future.

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But in that case, she had already devoted a lot of time and effort into the GMAT, including many hours of private tutoring. So, it seems that it was really the best score she could get. She had already decided she would not take the GMAT again. I don't know her score, but she said she applied to schools with average GMAT higher, but not significantly higher.

 

So, she was right. Waiting another year would not improve her profile. She was ready to apply. She had done a lot of research to define her list of schools, for example, and I think that's a big reason for her excellent results. She chose schools carefully according to her profile, getting in contact with professors before applying, things like that. She was also worried about age, since she was an older applicant. Unless we are talking about different members, but I don't think so.

 

In this case now, it seems to me that there is room for improvement. And that improvement would lead to better odds with mid schools, and even a chance at better schools. The current score seems very low even for mid-tier in Marketing. I'm in UH, which may be considered mid-tier I think (about top 30-40 for Marketing), our average GMAT score is 706 for business PhD in general, and my own score is 750.

 

For me, it worked waiting another year. I could have applied 1 year earlier, but my score by then was also much lower. If I had applied 1 year earlier, maybe I could be accepted by a lower ranked school, but I would regret knowing I could do much better. I improved my score by 70. It seems to me ccb could do something like that, and that's why I think this situation now is different from that member last year.

 

Anyway, it is good to have different opinions.

Edited by BrazilianPhD
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Thank you so much. I am so concern about the chances that I still have for taking GMAT (2 chances left for this year and 4 chances in my lifetime). I do not know whether I should retake it again in Jan or study for more months and take it in the future.

 

My ielts is 7.5, but my verbal in gmat is really bad. I do not know what to do as I used to take the kaplan test with v37/38, which is so much better than my actual performance.

 

Btw, how do you guys rank the schools? The rankings online seem to be unreliable.

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My opinion is that someone should take the GMAT again only after feeling a big improvement compared to the previous test. And if you are studying in a good way, you are monitoring your progress to know that. You don't take a GMAT again just hoping to get a better score, you take it again when you are pretty sure you will get a better score (or, ideally, the score you want to achieve).

 

My goal when I was applying was to take the GMAT in September-October. My reasoning was that taking the exam too early would provide no benefit, since more time until the test means more time to prepare for the test. On the other hand, taking the GMAT in November-December is too dangerously close to the deadlines, and I didn't want to take the risk.

 

Do not rely on scores from tests like Kaplan (or any other). They often are not accurate. I did take many practice tests before the official one, and none of them were accurate for me.

 

My verbal score is 42 (96%), so I guess I can say I know what it takes to get a good verbal score.

 

First, you have to be good in English, of course. But not any kind of English, the kind of English required for the GMAT. For example, you have to get used to reading very boring long texts for a long time without losing concentration.

 

But that's really not enough. You have to really get used to the way GMAT tests your English knowledge. There are patterns in the GMAT, and you must take advantage of that. No matter how good you are, you can get bad scores if you are not used to the many traps GMAT laid out for you. And that usually takes a lot of practice. You answer many, many questions, until you are used to the patterns of those traps and can identify many of them almost immediately.

 

And even that may not be enough. Many test takers fail because they don't have a good strategy to take the test. A common problem is time management, for example. Or not having a well-defined strategy to read a text, or to take notes. Facing a reading comprehension question without a strategy is to ask for trouble. You may get confused, start to go back and forth between the text and the alternatives, wasting precious time and stamina for the rest of the test.

 

The GMAT is not testing how good you are in Math or English. It is testing how good you are at taking the GMAT. So, learning about taking the GMAT is as important as Math and English if you want a good score. English is not my first language, and I never went to a language school. I'm pretty sure my English knowledge is not enough to get 96%. Don't compare the Verbal section of the GMAT with the IELTS, they are measuring different things. My IELTS score is 8, just slightly better than yours. So, I think it's not English knowledge you are missing, but GMAT knowledge.

 

About rankings, check this:

http://www.www.urch.com/forums/phd-business/159326-rankings.html

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