Did you follow an unusual course of study, such as an honors program or
a double major? Was your major a particularly challenging one? Did you
participate in any unusual courses, such as field research?
These are the points that the admissions committee wants to hear. For
example:
The committee will see that my final GPA is 3.5. I should point out that
the average would have been higher had I not had to work 20 hours each
week to finance my education. Additionally, my grades in the first
semester of my junior year were disappointing, because my grandmother,
who lived with my family and with whom I was very close, died. In order
to fulfill the requirements for the honors program, I wrote a 50-page
honors thesis on the economics of the Dutch fishing industry of the 18th
century. I have included with this application a copy of the introduction to
this paper.
You should take the same approach to your work experience. For
example:
During my junior and senior years in college, I worked an average of 20
hours per week at Billy's Burger Barn as the manager on the night shift. I
reported to work at midnight and got off at 4 a.m. As night manager, I
supervised 8 other employees and was responsible for making emergency
repairs on kitchen equipment. For example, once I was able to keep the
deep fryer in operation by using a length of telephone cable to repair a
faulty thermostat. The night manager was also responsible for maintaining
order. It's no easy job to convince intoxicated students who become too
rowdy to leave without calling the police. And we were robbed at gunpoint
not once, but twice.
Of course, if you have considerable work experience, e.g., if you
graduated from college several years ago, you will want to go into your
experience in more detail than student work experience merits.
Can you say anything about the GMAT? Probably not much. The GMAT
score is not usually open to interpretation, but there are some exceptions.
One such exception is a history of poor scores on standardized exams.
Consider the following:
I believe that my GMAT score of 600 understates my real ability for I
have never had much success on aptitude tests. My SAT score was only
