Tentang GMAT

Is it true that top business schools don't have minimum score requirements for GMAT? How about TOEFL?

Response 1

I guess almost all B-schools in the US don't put minimum GMAT requirements (I heard NUS/NTU put some GMAT requirements). But as a rule of thumb, usually for top schools, their students have GMAT score of >600. Does that mean if you have GMAT score less than 600, you don't have any chance to get into top schools? I would say, the chance is very slim (but not zero). Does that mean if you have GMAT score above 600, you definitely will get into top schools? I would also say, GMAT is not the most important factor.

Response 2

I personally think that there is a diminishing effect of GMAT score after a certain threshold. It is usually very difficult to differentiate yourself just by boosting your GMAT score. As long as your score is inside middle 80% range, you might be better off working on your essays than trying to increase 20-30 points of your GMAT score.

Is it true that GMAT is the most important indicator of an applicant’s quality?

Honestly, I was a bit surprised when I talked to many Indonesian applicants, who are planning to apply to B-schools for next fall admission. They put more efforts on GMAT instead of writing essays. They think essays are easy, and GMAT is the key to get into B-schools. They will spend 2-3 months preparing for GMAT (and probably 1-2 months to retake GMAT), which give them only 1 month for preparing their essays. For me, this is definitely a wrong strategy. Essay is as important as GMAT, even for some schools, essay is clearly more important than GMAT. Essay is the media for you to 'introduce' and 'sell' yourself to the schools. The admissions would only be able to picture yourself, whether you will be fit in the school and whether you will be able to contribute to other students, only through your essays.

How important is GMAT?

Response 1

Essays are more important. Having said that, if your undergrad GPA doesn't reflect strong academic performance, then GMAT score becomes more important.

Response 2

GMAT’s not a deal maker although it can be a deal breaker. Get 700 and you're fine. nothing incremental is gained from a few points above that threshold (unless you get a perfect score or something, in which case they might think you're a genius, a really good test-taker, or simply have no life). I think the best way to prepare for it is to practice. A lot. I know it sounds simple, but trust me. It's not rocket science. Once you've practiced a few sample tests in an environment as real as it is in the actual test (time yourself, don't let anything interrupt you etc), you'll get an idea what the questions are like and how to answer them. I used the book published by ETS (the organization that administers GMAT) which has thousands of sample questions from the real GMAT tests (so it's not too easy or too hard like kaplan or princeton review etc). Take it when you’re still fresh out of college coz that’s when your brain’s still functioning well.

Yes you heard from so and so that someone with 600 GMAT got in to top 3 school, but that's probably one out of 800 admits. My point is, it's all about how you spin your story. If you got low GMAT and have taken it three times, you probably can spin it by, e.g., howing that you improved the score or the fact that you got 4.0 GPA or the usual my-dog-ate-my-2b-pencil-so-i-couldn't-ace-the-test.

For GMAT & Toefl g baca dari website tiap school bahwa kita masih bisa take the test at the latest one day before the deadline (they say we can submit first the unofficial GMAT score without AWA). What do you think?

Yup, you still can do the GMAT on the last day of submission (if the school says so). But if you do that, it means you are really confidence that your GMAT score will be great both the computer score and AWA) and there will be no major accidents/incidents happened at the day when you want to take GMAT (e.g., no demonstration, no earthquake, electricity at the test center will always on, etc).

You'd probably need to clarify with the school whether it wants the official score before deadline or just self-reported score. The former will need additional 3 weeks to be issued.

How do I prepare for the GMAT?

If you want to prepare without assistance from GMAT tutors/prep classes, you may want to follow the following study plans:
1.
http://beatthegmat.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_beatthegmat_archive.html

This blogger documented in detail his preparation for the whole 80 days. Just follow what he did and you should be fine.

2. http://www.gmattutor.com/gameplan.html

There are 4 study plans in this website. You may choose the one suits your schedule. I followed the 300-hour plan and it did help.

How important is GMAT related to job?

It depends on the job. Some take it more important than the others, but like MBA application process, it's only one of the factors they consider. I guess there is no harm in improving your score if you have time. If the recruiter is not comfortable with your GMAT score, they'll possibly throw more questions to probe your quantitative and/or verbal skills. They'll also cross reference it with your job experience.

From my experience, only 2 (out of many) companies asked for my GMAT score
during my summer interviews (I did not put the score on my CV).