The most important part of the application: is it the GMAT, school transcripts, essays, interview, recs, resume…or something else completely? Ask most admissions committee members and they will tell you – it’s the sum of many parts – there is no one “most important” piece. I have heard it said that the most important part is your weakest part – in other words – everything matters. And that one weakness could throw your carefully prepared application off completely.

Your numbers can help push you into the consideration set. While a 600 GMAT or a 2.7 GPA may raise red flags at a school like Wharton, a 700 and a 3.5 make you a comfortable, reasonable applicant. However, your numbers cannot get you in. Average or above average numbers will not push you over the edge at a top school. Even a 800 and a 4.0 can meet rejection.

While it is hard to assign “most important” status to any one component, I will tell you that while strong essays, recommendations and interview can compensate for low numbers, the reverse is not true. Strong numbers will never compensate for weak written materials.

So, which component is most important? I doubt that any admissions committee would formally back me up, but I would have to cast my vote for essays. The essays are where they get to know you. It’s where you reveal why you want to attend and differentiate yourself from all of the other 700′s in the pool (and there are plenty of them!). The essays are your opportunity to present your strengths, explain your weaknesses and generally convince them that they want you in their class.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2005 at 1:15 am and is filed under Application Basics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.