I can't speak for other business schools but I know that Cranfield considers GMAT to be only one factor in determining whom to offer places, with work and in particular management experience rated more highly. It may be that your experience as a lawyer in M&A could make you a very attractive candidate.

Having been through Cranfield, and coming from a background in corporate finance myself, I can confirm that the Managing International Mergers and Acquisitions (MMA) elective is a very good one.

Mark, I think you're confusing the candidate above for mbalink but your general point is valid. If someone is below the average on the GMAT, which is the most important criterion at most schools, they can still be successful if they are better than average on more of the other factors that the school is looking for.

hello,

My GMAT Is 640 with 5 years 7 months of managerial experience should I apply to Warwick this year or not as they need 650 minimum.

kindly suggest

best
dinesh anand

Your GMAT is below their minimum. You would be wasting effort if you applied.

Hello everyone!

I have the same question as mbalink, but my profile is a little bit different:

Brazilian, male, 30 years, gmat 680, business administration degree (volunteer work during the graduation), around 7 years of working experience in big four companies in audit (Multinational were my main clients), and now I?m international auditor in an Swedish multinational company, in the Brazilian plant. I would love to make a small move in my career for strategy and consultancy field after the MBA, and also I want to work abroad after the mba. I was considering the following schools and I would love your opinions about the best options to my profile.

Warwick

Cranfield

Cass

LBS (I believe is out of my range)

Imperial College London (I?m afraid that they are not good in strategy and consultancy field)

However, I'm also looking for an different option, the MBA at Erasmus University in Rotterdam (RSM), specially for the big opportunity to be hired in Netherlands after the MBA.

What do you guys suggest?

Thank you all for the attention.

Best regards,

Ricardo

I think your best chance to be hire by a strategy consultancy is to be hired from a top international school to return to Brazil, and then internationalise from there. After that, then come to the UK. Unless you speak Dutch, then why would a consultancy hire you in the Netherlands?

Read:
- How to use LinkedIn to find the best school www.find-mba.com/board/33571
- Do you need to speak the local language? www.find-mba.com/board/34713

Thank you for your reply Duncan! I really appreciate!

I agree with you, and I know that all big strategy firm's are really selective and just a few are hired.

In the meantime, if I decide keep my career in the audit and finance field, which of my options should I apply to have a best match with my profile, and which one will give the a better chance to work in the UK after the program?

Once again, thank you for your time!!

Best regards,

Ricardo

You can answer this yourself Ricardo. Your admission chances are directly correlated with each school's selectivity and average GMAT. BusinessWeek has good data for this. Use the method outlined in the post above to use LinkedIn to find the best schools for you. Since finance, audit and consulting firms all require strong verbal and analytical skills, they will focus on top schools with strong GMAT scores.

Why not work on your GMAT a little more?

Hello again!

If I improve my GMAT score's, do you think I can be a competitive candidate for Cambridge/Judge? MBA? Looking their entry requirements, I believe that I have most of them, but I need to improve my GMAT score's (720 is enough? since I don't have connections or family in UK?). What do you thing?

Best regards!

Yes, I think that's a great idea.