mastermind

When I look at class profiles, I always see candidates admitted even with scores below 600, although I understand these are rare cases.

I'm not sure about that, will be interesting to see this year's questions and word limits and find out if this trend is real.

Not only HBS, many top school reduced the number of essays and/or the word limits this year, so applicants have less space to talk about themselves and they have to consider each word carefully.

No, nothing seriously exceptional in my career or in my profile. 680-700 seems reasonable and doable.

Great! thank you so much for this input!

Yes, I'm talking about MBA program that don't have a specific minimum, but still it is harder to get in with a low score. I guess you have to make up for it in other areas, like the GPA.

Hi, I'm thinking about applying to the top 20-30 MBA programs in the US, and I'm wondering what is the needed GMAT score. I know each school published its class profiles and sometimes you can see the GMAT range of admitted students starts really low (even in the 550 area). However, I know I need a high score unless my GPA is amazing (and it's not...). I saw in Aringo.com website that someone got into HBS with 580, and they also have this video explaining how to overcome a low GMAT score when applying to top MBA: http://www.aringo.com/low_gmat.htm What do you guys think?

It means you can apply, and if you are a really strong applicant you probably have a good chance of getting in even if you submitted late.