take the GMAT again or not?
Here's my situation. Since I graduated early I took my GMAT and got 700 on it. I graduated with a 3.3 from a semi target (good school but certainly no ivy). I will start work with a 2nd tier bank this summer and pursue that for 2 maybe 3 years. I will try to go for business school after that. Do you think its worth it for me to try to take the GMAT again? Or if I write decent essays do you think I stand a shot at something like Harvard?
If you think you can get a higher grade then why not?
If you ultimate goal is to get into a Harvard / Stamford, you will have to retake them.
I would re-take them if you have a significant shot at improving. If there is a 5% chance of getting it up to 750 then don't bother. However, if you do enough studying and know you can hit at least 730, I'd say go for it. There isn't much of a difference between 700 and 710 otherwise.
Id say retake and more importantly start NETWORKING at those schools. You have such a great situation right now. You have the next (4-5 not 2-3) years to do everything you need to do to get into a top 3 school. You have already started with the GMAT and 700 is a great score, but its a shade under the avg at those programs so retake. Once you get settled in at your firm, start talking to the H/W/S alumn - there should be a few at a 2nd tier.
You have so much time before you apply for B-school, why wouldn't you want to take the GMAT again?
Long-time lurker, first-time poster.
There is so much bad advice on here that I had to post. Take it from someone who has actually taken the gmat and gone to a top 5 b-school, a 700 is considered a great score by anyone who knows anything (b-school students, admissions and recruiters will all agree). Any incremental improvement will not significantly affect your application. Concentrate on getting good work experience, having some decent ECs and get some leadership expereince.
Get involved in Young Leaders, and fun networking shit like that. I really enjoy that stuff.
I have pretty good extracurriculars in college and good internship experience etc. But I am done with college as in I graduated in December. I am pretty sure I could it get it higher. I dunno how much higher but I couldn't finid=sh 5 questions in the math section because I hadn't done any practice tests before and had no idea about time. Bryan, is Young Leaders something you do after college? I was president of one organization and treasurer of another organization in college. Bunch of other things besides that. Bucs or anyone who knows about this, How do you network at those schools? As in how do you go about meeting people ? Besides the obvious.. (you know going to the schools and talking to the admissions people).
I'm not even going to address the part about retaking the GMAT because it's just not even worth it...
As far as ECs and leadership, undergrad becomes fairly irrelevant by the time you put your application together (though it is good you have some things to put on there). See if you can start volunteering someplace you enjoy and try to get some leadership there - especially if it can help round out your story. For example I love sports and so I have volunterred at special olympics forever with increasing reposibility. Lots of people BS this part of the application, you just need some credible stuff to put on there.
As far as networking, this board is so clueless about how to actually netowrk and how it actually works in the real world. Blind networking will not pay dividends. Unless they are a heavy hitter read: significant donor), they won't help you on the admissions front. However, when it comes time to the actual interview, knowing lots of alums. may help you to emphasize your interest and enable you to speak to why you want to go to that specific school.
LOL about Bucs47's post that some H/W/S grads may be at 2nd tier banks (whatever that means anyways). One of the more clueless things I have read in a while...
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