Mission Admission: I have a 700 GMAT Score, but my AWA… Don’t Ask!
August 24th, 2008 | Posted in Mission Admission, Blogroll
You have taken a course, studied hard and finally “nailed” the GMAT. However, you soon learn that your score on the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), the essay portion of the GMAT, is low. Is it time to panic?
In short, the answer is… no! While we always encouraged candidates to try as hard as they can on the AWA, the truth of the matter is that we have never been told by an admissions officer, nor has a candidate been told in a feedback session, that the AWA score was a factor in an admit/reject decision. Generally, the AWA is not used to evaluate candidates, but to detect fraud.
If, hypothetically, you had tremendous difficulty expressing yourself via the AWA essays, but wrote like a Pulitzer Prize winning writer in your application essays, the school would get suspicious and begin to compare the two. Not to worry — the schools are not punitive and are not acting as fraud squads. It is expected that your AWA essays will be unpolished, so no one will be seeking out your file if you did your best in both areas. However, in cases of enormous discrepancies between the two, the AWA serves a purpose.
So, if you did well on the GMAT and have a low AWA, it is a shame, but it is not going to be THE difference. Rest easy….as long as you wrote both!
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