My suggestion is that focusing on your current research rather than GMAT. You have already had two papers in hand that fully reflects your research potential. Try to follow your supervisor to learn more from research that is valuable for your future. GMAT is meaningless for your further research.
Does your supervisor have any connections with US universities? If yes, follow his advise. Strong relationships are very important on PhD applications. If no, you can search what scholars are doing research related to your topics in top tier journals. Please do not focus on university ranking. Supervisors are much more important.
Thanks a lot. I really appreciate your suggestion. Since I am not studying in Mainland China, the professors taught me before do not think GMAT score is a critical factor affected PhD application. And they say that 680 is OK for application. BUT CDer all suggest that only >700 will be considered by the Universities. More important, I do not have the motivation to test again since I think it is not so related to my research interest. I only spent less than 2 months to study GMAT and think that's enough for me. Don't want to experience again. Now my supervisor and I will write another paper, I am more interested in that. My supervisor taught me so much on research, and even applied for a lot of $$ to buy data.
My research interest is almost determined in my previous studies. Your suggestion is important for me. Thank you very much!
I think most CDers put emphasis on GMAT is because they do not have English international papers and so professors rely much on GMAT to choose PhD applicants. If you have rich research experience, you can emphaize this strength in you PS. In fact, Australian scholars can also get their work published in top tier journals and you have already had Western academic training! However, I am not sure whether the connection of your professor with American professors is strong. I based on the connection of my ex-supervisor to choose American universities and so not difficult to find a suitable American professor to follow.
My supervisor suggested one U in America. And I found it is in top 10.
You know the candidates applied for top 10 are almost have GMAT scores >760. But I will still try, even I really do not have much confidence. I used to plan to apply universities in Australia. But since I have the contract to work as assistant untial next June. So I choose to apply American Universities first. I will go to the conference this December. Hope I will meet some professors from US in that area. But seems professors from US seldom join conference in Australia.
sm1 and Kelvin, Thanks a lot for your suggestions!
What could harm you is GPA, but you may have some edge by publication (depend on the journal level of course, it's hard for me to tell what you mean A+ blahblah).
For those 50-100 schools, a 680 GMAT is so so due to inflation GMAT grade recently, but won't cost you that much.
The reason is simple, everyone knows GMAT tells nothing about Asian students' true ability on English communication.
A high GMAT, say, 730+ with other criterion OK could buy you an interview (in some schools, they interview ten or more students before they decided the offer and WL, others would decided a WL list first, then interview for deciding offer).
But the reality is, once interview is made, GMAT means nothing at all, other things in profile could still play a role in ranking.
For example, after interview, PhD advisor could ranking someone higher because his/her school has better name or some other things, but never because of GMAT.
There are more and more high GMAT Asian guys doomed in interview, and lose their chance to those applicants with lower GMAT.
A higher than your current GMAT score is surely nice for you, but it won't worth for much extra efforts.
Well, what I want to say is, you will not rely on GMAT to distinguish yourself, and the marginal effect on higher GMAT decline sharply for those 50-100 schools.
Even if you paper is crappy, that is still something can distinguish yourself from other applicants.
What I trying to said is in general speaking is a key thing for Asian students.
There are a lot of Asian PhD students in business, and some of them suffer from acent problem when they are on Job market.
That's why now schools prefer European or Indian to Asian, there are still lots of Chinese or Korean get addmission simply because there are tons of applicants from these two countries.
So I think it's more important to convince school your speaking is good enough than to get a high GMAT which every Asian applicant has it.
More school now require TSE or speaking test, so higher score there or at speaking part of iBT is worthy to fight on.
It's way more worthy to become an average applicant than to become an average "Asian" applicant.
That's why now schools prefer European or Indian to Asian, there are still lots of Chinese or Korean get addmission simply because there are tons of applicants from these two countries.
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发表于 2006-10-22 00:10:00
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My supervisor taught me so much on research, and even applied for a lot of $$ to buy data. 
You know the candidates applied for top 10 are almost have GMAT scores >760. But I will still try, even I really do not have much confidence. 
I used to plan to apply universities in Australia. But since I have the contract to work as assistant untial next June. So I choose to apply American Universities first. I will go to the conference this December. Hope I will meet some professors from US in that area. But seems professors from US seldom join conference in Australia. 
