Hi,

First of all I want to thank Manhattan GMAT for their wonderful material and online test prep (Although I found it much tougher than the GMAT! it did push me to prepare more). And the OG stopwatch is a great application!! I ended up using it ~50 times for solving OG questions.

Getting to the point, I had given GMAT last week and got a score of 750 (Q:51 - 99% V:40 - 89% AWA: 5 - 61%). Overall its a 98 percentile score. I am satisfied with the score on the whole. However, I am a little concerned about the AWA score, which is 5 (61%). How good/bad is the AWA score? I am aiming for the Top 10 b-schools in the US and I wanted to know if the AWA score will affect my application and if so how important is it. Is there any trend as to how the top-10 schools evaluate/interpret the AWA scores?.

Let me know if you need me to provide any further details to answers these questions.

Second, I will be applying in round 1 (October) to these schools and have started planning out my next steps in terms of what I need to do and in what ways I can strengthen my application. It would be great if someone could point out any useful sources on the internet (i found some like http://www.stacyblackman.com/ , http://blog.clearadmit.com/ and http://daveformba.blogspot.com/ all of which I will be going through this week). Any other source that would be helpful apart from the school websites and the above mentioned sites?

Looking forward to the responses.

Thanks in advance,
Pramod Rao

pramodrao,

Awesome score and goog luck with your apps. Do you mind telling us how you you did so well on the test?

Hi,

Just wanted to know again if anyone has any insights to throw on the questions that I had asked?

@Guest: I think this is section is only for general questions. I will post it on the relevant section (i think its the GMAT Test experience thread?) by this weekend. Hope it helps.


Regards,
Pramod Rao

Nice job! That's fantastic! Your essay score is fine - the schools just want to see a score higher than 4 or 4.5.

We recommend four application services. You can find more info here: http://www.manhattangmat.com/gmat-mba-prep-consulting.cfm

(Some are the same ones you already know about.) Good luck - let us know how apps go!

Thanks for responding. Yep seems like there is too much info on the web regarding application stuff! so making a careful effort not to get carried away!! :) ... will keep the forum posted!

PR

Nice job! That's fantastic! Your essay score is fine -the schools just want to see a score higher than 4 or 4.5.

Hi Stacey,

I'm in the similar boat as the original poster (44/89%/Q 41/97%/V 750/98%), looking to apply to a top 10 US program. However, my AWA score is only a 4.5/49%. I know I could have scored better (especially on the second essay), but I just didn't manage my time accordingly and the essays ended up a little too bare-boned. Is the GMAT worth retaking in this instance? Again, it's top 10 or bust. If it helps, my college GPA was a 3.50/4.00 -- nothing horrible, but nothing spectacular.

Best Regards,

Ron

It's not worth retaking just for the essay if you already have a 4.5 or higher. The schools care most about the essays you submit with your application; they essentially use the test's essays as a "check" to make sure you're probably the one who wrote those essays. If someone scores a 2 and then turns in amazing essays... they might wonder what kind of help that person had on his/her app essays. Otherwise, they'll judge you based on the essays you submit with your app. They know the impromptu essays given on the test are a completely artificial construct - in the real world, you're never going to be given a topic and told to write an essay in the next 30 minutes. :)

Nice job on the test, by the way!