Low GMAT score? Here's Our Advice
Updated: Apr 24
Happy New Year! We wish you a prosperous & delightful new year and hope that you realize your dream of pursuing higher education, either in India or abroad. Regardless of where you decide to study (aka at a Tier-1 institution in India or in the world), Faith Career would be glad to help you. In this blog post, our Co-founder and Study Abroad Expert, Tanmay Singh, is debunking a popular myth so that MBA, MIM, and graduate program (M.Sc., MFin, MBAn) aspirants can feel more confident about their candidature.
𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗮 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗚𝗠𝗔𝗧 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝘄.
Let us explain. Since September 2015, we have been helping students to study at top-notch academic institutions in India and abroad. In these 7+ years, we have spoken with thousands of aspirants. One of the reasons why aspirants don’t feel confident about their candidature is because they think that a low or average GMAT score would hamper their chances of receiving an offer letter.
We want to put an end to this debate for once and all. Have a look at the below screenshot which is from Harvard Business School’s webpage displaying Class of 2024’s profile.
What can you observe? Yes, you’re right. There are students who scored 540/800 in the GMAT and are sitting in that prestigious classroom.
Let us share some more evidence with you.
INSEAD is one of the Top 10 B-schools in the world. They have clearly mentioned the following on their website:
"A high score does not guarantee admission, and a below average score does not eliminate a candidate."
➡️ The discipline of Statistics tells us that causation is not equal to correlation. Thus, here’s the deal.
✅ A strong GMAT score (720+) alone will NOT guarantee that you will receive an admit to pursue a top-notch MBA program.
Similarly, your chances of getting into a renowned school aren’t tanked just because you scored a 550.
🤔 But why is that so? This is because the admissions committee 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 evaluates your application. This means that EACH aspect of your application contributes to the adcom’s decision of giving you an offer letter (or not).
If you’ve scored 760 in the GMAT but 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘯’𝘵 presented yourself well via the four “human” parts of your application (essays, recommendation letters, CV, and live/recorded interviews), then be assured that you’re not going to receive a favourable decision from your target school. Polish the 4 human elements of your profile as much as you can, instead of paying excessive attention to (and worrying too much about the) GMAT since it is only one data point in your application and doesn't tell the adcom much about your predicted success in graduate school (MBA, MIM, MFin, M.Sc., etc.).
You and your lived experiences are so much more than just one factual part of your application. Dig deeper and introspect to clearly think about them and produce them on paper.
It is always 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 that you work with an experienced expert to refine (to the extend that you can) those 4 parts of your application.