GMAT woes

During a random internet browse, I stumbled upon this particular Business Week article: GMAT: The MBA Job Seeker's Best Friend

This hit a major sore spot with me. By any number of standards, a 680 GMAT score is a very good accomplishment. I took the exam about this time last year, and it had caused a lot of stress in my life. I was very glad to get it over and done with so I could focus on my essays.

That may have been a bad move, I'm not sure.  Because it's not above a 700, I may have taken myself out of the running for getting noticed by one of the elite consulting companies - i.e. Bain, McKinsey. How so, you ask? They actually look at your GMAT and make judgements thereof on your intellectual ability. Yes, folks, it's not just to prove to the school that you're academically able to handle the coursework but it's also used as a yardstick measure to find the top of the class.*

Unfair? Sure, but it's a fact of life. I had put my GMAT on my resume, but now I'm thinking I just need to remove it and hope that the removal doesn't imply that I am hiding a poor score.



* Tepper has a grade non-disclosure policy where a company recruiting on-campus cannot ask for GPA until the second round interviews. So the more traditional measures of academic intellect are not available for the first consideration of candidate quality.