GMAT Quant - How low is a 'Low Quant' Score

Hey Guys. Had a quick question on what a low GMAT quant score is. I took the GMAT yesterday and I got a 710 with a 47 in Quant and a 40 in Verbal. I'll be applying to Yale SOM, Stern, Booth, Cornell and Darden.

Some brief stats -

Undergrad in Business Management with a 'First Class'.

Asian with 6 years of work experience - 2.5 years at a BB Back Office and 3.5 years of M&A experience at a regional boutique IB with solid EC's.

Will my GMAT quant score raise alarms, in other words, do I need to retake the GMAT ? In any case, I will be able to retake it only after submitting the applications in round 2. While my score looks decent, i'm worried that it is on the lower side for an Asian applicant (Peer group comparison?). Any thoughts ?

 

As previous posters mentioned-your quant score is fine. Higher verbal scores will actually pad your gmat score more as they're weighed more heavily on the exam. Re-take and increase your verbal (without any dropoff in quant, obviously) and then apply with confidence.

 
Best Response
User1233333:

There are so many misconceptions about MBA admissions.

Your application is a combination of three factors, with a very very distant 4th, and one surprise factor

1. Total GPA with a very slight emphasis on from where. (IE a Georgetown 3.5 will probably equal a 3.6 or 3.7 from a very very unknown school, but maybe not even)
2. Total GMAT (No admissions officer is caring about your quant score if your total score is high, no matter what people try to say. WIth that said, you can not get a high GMAT with a really bad quant)
3. Company brand name

DISTANT #4. Essays, Recs, Volunteer work, Interview, etc etc etc

Surprise: When you look over statistics and there is that 3.2 690 average company type person at an M7, they belong in some sort of underrepresented bucket: Gender/military/race/country/etc

Prepared for MS.

Eh, I think you strongly underestimate the "story" aspect, which I believe actually comes slightly before or equal to brand name. Other than that I agree with you.

 

You're better off working on your verbal.

That said, as far as "getting an interview" is concerned, the difference between a 710 and a 730 is greater than 0, but it isn't a very big deal.

The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.
 
Frank Slaughtery:

@jtbbdxbnycmad i disagree that a 710 to a 730 doesn't make a huge difference. Unless you're a female/urm or have a very strong/unique background, schools aren't going to want to take you with a below avg GMAT.

Agreed. I think being at or above average is a big deal if you are in a traditional group (white/Asian/Indian male in a finance/consulting/accounting/IT industry).
 
Frank Slaughtery:

@jtbbdxbnycmad i disagree that a 710 to a 730 doesn't make a huge difference. Unless you're a female/urm or have a very strong/unique background, schools aren't going to want to take you with a below avg GMAT.

As I said originally, as far as getting an interview is concerned, it makes a difference, but it's not huge. Source: apart from just knowing my classmates and my own admissions experience, I worked as a student reader/grader at one of the M7 a few years ago.

The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.
 

jsnooky33 - i entered b-school two years ago at the age of 24 (just graduated last month) and had pretty similar stats (i.e. - similarly ranked MBA program, slightly lower GMAT, etc.). i found that a score close enough to a 700 wasn't a deal-breaker. as it relates to your age, i tried not to make it an issue assuming that it could potentially be seen as a negative (i.e. - lack of maturity, lack of experience, etc.). during my mid-summer review with my BB bank last year, one of the comments was that i was seen by the analysts as more of a friend than a superior and that probably had a little do with my age...a few of the analysts were older than me! i'll be starting full-time at a different BB. i say all this to prove that you can be successful in your quest to enter banking...good luck!

 

If you're concerned about your gmat score, why don't you only list your full GMAT score on your resume, as opposed to breaking out quantitative vs. verbal. I only listed my total GMAT score and no one asked me about it. A general suggestion I once heard was list your GMAT if it is 700 and above, but there aren't any hard and fast rules. Hell, I don't even know if anyone would ask you about your GMAT during interviews. Since you were an engineer, I would think they would assume you are fairly quantitative.

 

The raw score isn't bad, it's just the percentile that isn't very competitive. Some of the more GMAT-obsessed schools might get a little pretentious with a 710, but a 710 is a 710 is a 710 - it's in the bulge of the bell curve territory for top-10 schools and I doubt they're going to think twice about it.

The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.
 

My vote: retake if you are aiming for a top school. The gap is pretty huge. I had a similar score on my first attempt and improved it hugely just by adding a few quant points. My verbal was very strong so I ONLY studied quant for my second attempt -- seems like you should do the same.

 

I'm in a pretty similar boat -- I got a 49V and a 42Q (which, if I remember correctly, is like 99+ on the V and like ~60 on the Q).

I decided to just say fuck it, as I'm a pretty nontraditional candidate to begin with, and I doubt the adcom decision will come down to my crappy GMAT split. My quant score certainly isn't going to be what gets me into school. Retaking the test now would probably drive me nuts, and I really don't want to study for this crap (though I do wish I had studied the first time around). I guess I'll know in a few months whether or not this was a good move, ha.

 

^

Haha, good luck! Tell me how that goes. Seems like a pretty similar situation, especially since I didn't study at all. I'll probably wait a year or two to retake it; I assume I'll go for an MBA after 2 years of work experience, anyway. Now the trouble is getting a job in MC without any previous summer internships :P

 

I'm assuming you've already spent a fair amount of time studying, so why don't you put in a little more time to boost your math? I recommend MGMAT Advanced Quant in addition to the general MGMAT Quant series. The Advanced Quant book in particular will help you think about multi concept questions which are the hardest ones on the test. If you can score 48, you're generally in an area where you won't get questioned on your math skills. A 48/44 comes out to 750, too.

 
HarvardOrBust:

I'm assuming you've already spent a fair amount of time studying, so why don't you put in a little more time to boost your math? I recommend MGMAT Advanced Quant in addition to the general MGMAT Quant series. The Advanced Quant book in particular will help you think about multi concept questions which are the hardest ones on the test. If you can score 48, you're generally in an area where you won't get questioned on your math skills. A 48/44 comes out to 750, too.

That is some pretty good advice.

 

You're fine. You passed the magic 80% mark on quant and your overall score is acceptable. Congratulations. Move on to the rest of your app.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

Could be a dumb question, but is there a big difference to top schools between a 49Q and a 48Q (78%)? Assuming a 710 score, How big of a deal is it to be just below the 80th quant percentile? I'm just wondering if the 710 will cover that up.

 

That score should be fine. It's really hard to score above where you are at because you can only miss one or two questions..for quant. Realistically, there is little chance you could retake the test and score better...at least with any certainty...so you should be happy.

You could spend time and retake the test in order to bring up your verbal, but your score, as it stands, is solid enough to get you looked at and your essays and the overall quality of the application is more likely to get you dinged at this point...so, as CompBanker said, just move forward and focus on everything else.

Make sure you put time into your essays, preferably over the course of weeks, if possible, so that you can think about the question over a longer period of time and approach it with fresh eyes more than once. Also, make sure you are answer the question they asked and not the question you think think they asked or providing an answer of what you think they want to hear. I had a friend that applied for a respected executive program and asked me to review his essay questions. He wrote a whole bunch of stuff about himself...which essentially reiterated his resume...and never answered the question. The school wanted to know how his previous experience would contribute to the classroom experience for all the students.

So, make sure you answer the question and, if you can avoid it, don't tell them things they already know. Your resume tells them you worked at XYZ Bank for several years, so don't reiterate that point. Don't tell them that you worked on a project, tell them that with your contribution, the project successfully increased profit or productivity, or whatever, by XX%. Stuff like that. Best of luck.

Regards

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
 
cphbravo96:
That score should be fine. It's really hard to score above where you are at because you can only miss one or two questions..for quant. Realistically, there is little chance you could retake the test and score better...at least with any certainty...so you should be happy.

Are you sure about that? I remember reading in the MGMAT guide that due to the adaptive nature of the test, most test takers will miss around the same number of questions. However, the difficulty level of the questions answered has a large impact on the score, so that is where the score differences mainly come from.

 

You can miss something like 15 problems and still get a Q49. You just have to miss the really tough ones and then get the easier ones correct. Also, you can't have any back to back misses. Conversley, you could get every question right until the last 5, and then not attempt the last 5 due to time and end up with a Q46, depending on the specific subjects of those questions.

Verbal does not follow this same scoring. You will lose about 1 point for every wrong answer, and possibly more than 1 point if you miss an easier answer.

While it is true that you can't truly "know" exactally how the scoring works, if you do a little research and examine some of the variables that go into your score, you can come up with a gameplan that will help you maximize your score.

 
wannabeaballer:
While it is true that you can't truly "know" exactally how the scoring works, if you do a little research and examine some of the variables that go into your score, you can come up with a gameplan that will help you maximize your score.

Like get every question right?!? LOL.

But great point, which I failed to mention...the score will depend on which ones you get right or wrong in certain subjects as well.

Regards

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
 

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