Hi,

I took GMAT yesterday and scored 710. This was my second attempt. In the first attempt I had scored 690(I was working late in office and hence was not able to sleep for 48 hours before giving the tests). I had always scored 740-760 on the mock tests. I am confused whether I should take it for the third time considering I may end up improving a bit or not improving at all.

A look at my profile :

I am an Indian IT female. I have completed my Bachelors in Technology from a reputed institute in India with an average GPA of 4.3/5 ( 86 percent in terms of total marks).
I have 3+ years of work experience in the best (US) Products Developing company(if not the best then one of the best). I have cleared french DELF examinations and couple of stock markets examinations. I am actively involved in social work and work regularly for an NGO for Teaching in India. Also I work part time for AIDS and Leprosy awareness campaigns. I am the member of the creative community from our office and part of the core team for many organizational events. I am a free lancer writer and have my personal blog(which I am maintaining from past 4 years). I have won writing contests and I also write for social causes.

Apart from this I am a fitness and Yoga fanatic and deeply involved in Art of living work across India.
Professionally I have received 5-6 awards during my tenure at the company and currently lead a vendor team of 3 people.

Please evaluate my profile and let me know what more can I do and whether I should retake the test.

Thanks for the help.

Hi Tinnu,

Thanks for writing in. It's a bit difficult to fully evaluate your profile without knowing your target programs or post-MBA goals. While I'm sure you know that Indian IT candidates are heavily represented, it does appear that you have several ways to differentiate yourself from that group -- your recognition at work, your community service/NGO work and your writing, to name what sticks out to me. Your challenge will be to clearly show leadership experience and community involvement in your essays, even relying on non-work stories to add substance to your essays.

Combining all this with a 710 could lead to a "good" application at top schools (again, not sure what your target is). But if you really could get that to a 750, then it could be a "great" application, and top schools would likely take more notice. Given that you took the first test under diress (no sleep), if you have the time and motivation, you may want to retake it once to see if indeed you can achieve that 99 percentile score.

Good luck!
Daniel Richards
http://www.mbamission.com

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