Agree, poker would look better applying to hedge funds directly but either don't include it or at the very least minimize it for b-school admissions

I got some PMs about what I meant about being careful with mentioning poker.

AdComs know nothing about poker, and just like the general public they may have something against gambling, or an uncle who lost everything with a gambling problem. Most folks on AdComs are not businessmen, they're people who work in the Ivory Tower, so just making money probably won't impress them. So I'd think carefully about what it added to my resume/application before I put poker down.

obv, if you're a pro with long resume gaps, then you don't have many options -- you have to fill those gaps with something. if poker is all you got, then put it. but otherwise, i'd probably not mention it.

Thank you above posters for your responses. Sounds like a no brainer - I'll be mindlessly grinding accounting for a while longer

Not to be pessimistic, but 18 months of professional poker is most likely (read: 99%) NOT going to be something viewed positively. I mean, it depends heavily on your luck, but most likely, the admissions officer will view professional poker as professional gambling as most people do, instead of viewing it as a corollary to studying the financial markets and seeing and understanding how people deal with their holdings emotionally.

Anyways, I do agree with you that you'll need to pull for that 700 as much as possible. I would say scoring high 600's would be suffice, but you would definitely need to have a strong leadership/community background, or maybe a great story (however professional poker just isn't going to cut it). Your GPA is fine, work experience is fine, and it depends on your GMAT. Admissions officers really look at the applications holistically; it's a huge knock if you got a 690 and kept taking the exam to try to get a 720 or 730. They'll just look at that and wonder why you didn't work on the actual weak points of your application.

In a book recently written about HBS, the author mentioned that one of his classmates was a professional poker player and that helped with admissions.
(http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...TJEWzuLAalsp3g)

Admissions committees go for diversity in most programs. It may not be as bad as you think.

I'm not saying that it's impossible, but I'm just saying if an admissions officer had to pick between someone who decided to go be a professional poker player for awhile vs someone that went to some third world country to try to make a difference in the world or whatever, the latter most likely has a better chance of getting picked (all else being equal). Honestly I hope you are right and that poker players are viewed more than just degen gamblers, but just from interactions with people in the academic field and just people in general, it can hurt more than it can help. You better have one darn good story of why you wanted to be a pro poker player rather than just, I want to make money.

source? not that you would have a specific one but the fact that one could spike a 700+ on a third try always bothered me...so if this is valid, it makes me happy.

i had a buddy though who went mid 600s twice then spiked ~750 and did the 1Y at Kellogg. smart kid no doubt and for the life of me have no idea how he went mid 600s twice but he seems to disprove the theory...

Not naming names but there is a poker pro/former pro at my school. However he was ranked highly, had a coaching site, and a "real job" before poker as well. So... you're going to need stuff besides just poker.

This got lost in translation a little bit here; I accidentally said that all he needed to focus on was his GMAT, but in actuality I had meant that it appears he needs to work on his extracurricular/leadership activities (maybe he just failed to mention it); towards the end of my post I mentioned that applicants need to work on the weakest part of the application. If he does indeed have strong extracurricular activities, and a 690 is the only "weakness" he has, then admissions committees won't look upon him taking it a third time to get into the 740+ range unfavorably.

The source of this knowledge is from all over; admissions officers, GMAT Club, Beat The GMAT forum, etc. Why do I know all this crap? I'm a 2011 applicant....lol.

BTW, if you just troll around the forums I mentioned, you'll see that it's not unusual at all for people to score something like 600 on their first try and then get a 750 later. And then there are instructors who didn't do any prep and got perfect scores (search Lunarpower on Beat the GMAT forums). It comes naturally for some people, and not at all for others. But I don't think it's the end all, be all. It's not like, "oh he got a 770, and oh, he got a 690; Mr. 770 definitely will be a much better manager".

Just wondering, why does it bother you if someone doesn't get a 750 in the first try but on the third? It's not as if it's any easier....in fact it's probably harder psychologically, in my mind. The GMAT is a perfect blend of an intelligence test and a book test, IMO. All you need to know is the English language and math up to geometry, but the test makers can make questions that are seemingly impossible. Some of the hardest questions you just can't study for.....you just have to "get" it.

word to the earlier part. I agree.

I might be unfairly assuming, but I would think often times the spike is a result of private tutors and the like (at least from my small sample size of friends). I'm 100% ok with a school concluding this and saying "wow, they have great work ethic and determination" or "they must really want to come here if they paid all that money" if adcoms choose to interpret the spike this way.

in some cases, it could just be a bad day or two (although "bad days" is an entirely different discussion). the case of my Kellogg friend, I bet it was. I actually don't know if he used tutors but he described it as "I just wasn't figuring out the shortcuts in math and then it finally clicked the third time."

but as a one time test taker with just a Kaplan book, I hope my 720 carries a little more weight than a 650/650/720 (or even a 650/650/730). obviously if i donked the test twice and then got my score, I'd feel differently but the 650/650/720 is clearly more of a 690 or so imo (I know the CAT does help reduce variance).

my reasoning is fueled by the fact that if schools claim to take a "holistic" approach to the app, they should for the GMAT too. but in the end, it's a small part of the picture so it doesn't bother me past wanting to debate it on message boards...but obv if the GMAT was the LSAT (law schools mostly average), I'd be a stronger candidate.

as poker players we grasp variance better than most (and as somebody who has hardcore ADD in the RC sections I know interesting passages can go a long way), so I'm not trying to say there aren't unique circumstances, but overall...I don't believe that 650/650/720 is a 720. but I don't make the rules.

sorry for the rant

I understand where you're coming from, but I definitely disagree. From your point of view, and I know you didn't actually say this explicitly, someone who had to take the exam three times and study for a long time to get a 720 is inferior to the person who didn't have to study and get a 720. Correct me if this isn't what you're implying.

Let's just look at it this way in terms of athletics; here's a very simple analogy. Athlete X is never has done a bench press before, but is naturally very strong. The first time he benches, he maxes out at 315 pounds. Athlete Y has been benching for 5 years, and was just an average guy. His first bench press was 135 pounds. Now his max on the bench is 315 pounds. They both can push the same amount of weight for 1 rep.

Now why would athlete X be the better bencher vs athlete Y?

OK need a reality check.

3.3ish from Princeton, athlete.

law school at ohio state, 2 years at wme, a huge talent agency

scoring around 700 on gmat practice tests

will i get into ohio state?

if yes, could i get in to better schools?

yes and yes imo

-athlete X, with training, could end up benching more than 315. athlete Y might have reached his max potential.

-b schools are investing in you as much as you are investing in them, no? obviously part of the investment decision is will the mix of raw talent and hard work get them somewhere down the line...but I hope schools are taking a flier on athlete X...but I'm more X than Y so of course I am biased.


as to your first point, I think it shows poor decision making to take a test before you are ready. Agree or disagree? This is business school, not undergrad (where, the immediate post HS matriculation is by far the norm)...so underperforming on the GMAT twice then spiking a score says things about an applicant, imo. More than just decision making, some things maybe even considered to be positive attributes (the diligence, etc I mentioned in a previous post).

you weren't wrong though, I am implying inferiority of x/x/720 compared to 720 because of the athlete analogy and the upside factor.

I'm of course ignoring a million factors (athlete X may, typically, be worthless in a collaborative classroom environment or his 2.5 GPA is evidence he will probably never fully apply his raw talent), but I'll take athlete X two years from now vs athlete Y every time.

+1

also...scandal with your avatar and Moritz degree. wanting to go back to OSU...are you trying to be featured in an ESPNU commercial?

Yep, you're definitely right; schools want candidates with the best match in their minds, and it definitely is a give and take situation.

I disagree; you're making a critical error in your assumption in that sufficient preparation is the only factor in getting a high score. The GMAT isn't a memorization exam; it tests your lateral thinking, not your linear thinking. It's close to impossible for someone to know all the SC rules, all the quant tricks, etc, to the exam. Pressure is a huge factor; the GMAT is an extremely psychological exam. The exam messes with your mind lol. You can miss 12 out of 37 questions and still get a perfect 51 raw score, just because the CAT is pushing you hard(I actually know this because I did it on GMAT prep, which supposedly is as real as it gets to the scoring algorithm of the real exam). The main point of the exam is to see how well you can make the right decision under duress. I bet you most people would score very well if the sections were twice as long as the 75 minutes given. Also, sometimes people get sick on test day and take it anyways. Sometimes something weird happens the day before test day; a lot of things can happen. I've read stories where people have raised their scores as much as 100 points in the minimum amount of wait time (31 days) the GMAC requires.

Another athletic correlation: Supposedly Shaq hits 90% of his free throws in practice, yet only hits 50% in games. And with some players, the reverse actually happens; they turn up the juice in the clutch. Pressure does different things to different people. Same thing with the GMAT.

In short, from all the crap I've read over the past year or so, admissions officers don't care whether you get your best score the first or third try. They don't tell you to take the GMAT 3 times to see how consistently you can hit score X. They just want to see what your max is in any of your best tries. Only once the amount of retakes starts getting ridiculous (5, 6 times) is when they start wondering what's wrong with the applicant.



Well, once we get into this territory, we're reading into factors that's more than just the bench press. If we're talking about consistent growth in strength and max potential, I agree with you, I'd take athlete X all the time on paper. But again, we'd be discussing a lot more factors than what we're comparing RIGHT NOW, the bench press. I'm really just arguing the fact that a 720 the first time for one person is the same as a 720 the 100th try for someone else, it is what it is.

Picking B school applicants is probably like the NFL combine, an incomplete science where measurables aren't everything; there will definitely be some bad picks! lol

Riverman, getting into OSU would be a cakewalk for you, just from your epic WME post lol. Honestly, your background is pretty interesting, and admissions officers love NCAA/Pro athletes for some reason. You can probably get into a top 10 school with relative ease.

we obviously have different opinions, neither right nor wrong...but while I'm not trying to ignore variance, the low/low/high triple test taker is not passing the "right decision under duress" part of the test.

yes I'm sure at the combine and in many aspects of life you get more than one shot (as you should)...and the business world is not built on 75 minute sections, and I probably overvalue raw smarts...and I know some people are just not good test takers, etc, etc...but if i could build a business school class, I'd invest hard in raw talent (not just test scores, but younger applicants, etc) and put faith in my faculty to nurture it. then again, I'd probably end up with a few Ryan Leafs and Jamarcus Russells...

I actually at some point in my life would love love love to be on an adcom just to mix things up/see what really goes on in there.

and not to keep this debate going but a factor we're ignoring is as long as schools can take your highest score and use it in their entering class statistics, aren't they content?

random thought sparked by keepitreal's post: should i put my GMAT/SAT score on my resume? in the past I haven't because I see it as maybe a little presumptuous.

on the other hand, i really value working with people who have raw smarts. so maybe i should put it on there as a way to qualify whether a company cares about raw smarts.

Hey guys, just found this thread and it looks cool. I'm doing an MBA right now at Booth and would be happy to answer any questions you might have about the school or the decisions I made in applying.

Ezra

Yeah, everyone has differing opinions on the GMAT. I think one thing everyone people can agree on is that it's definitely possible to work your score up to a certain point. So if someone gets a 500 or something they shouldn't give up hope.

Nah, I don't think it'd be "presumptuous" to put it on your resume; your resume is supposed to be a list of your achievements, experience, and awards....sooooooo I mean, the whole point IS to be presumptuous lol. But I get what you're saying; it really wouldn't be unusual. A lot of my friends post scores of 700+ on their resume. You can put it on there if you'd like, but it just depends on the work you're looking for. I wouldn't put it on if you're going into a non-financial field, as they probably wouldn't care, but it certainly wouldn't hurt you if you did. If you're looking into a field like consulting they'll most likely ask your GMAT score anyways.

I agree that it's definitely a lot better to work with smart people; you don't have to waste your breath as much explaining random stuff, but then again I've worked with some really smart pretentious guys who are pretty much absolute jerks. I'd rather work with someone nice in that case.

If you don't mind answering...

Where else do you apply, who ding'ed you and who accepted you, and what were your "stats" (GMAT/GPA/yrs exp)?

Also, whats a typical day like in B-School?

What distinguishes year 1 from year 2 (or 3)?

Are you meeting a lot of smart, endeavorous people, or a lot of full-of-themself, entitled toolbags, or a good mix of both, none, in between?

Thanks!

+1

What campus visits did you do, if any, and do you have any recommendations on getting the most out of a campus visit?

haha wait, I thought Loz was mocking me...but unless you are in on the level, are we serious?

I will withhold further comment until I know if I'm being punked.