The Graduate Management Admission Test, commonly known as the GMAT, is required at all reputable, accredited universities that offer MBA degrees or MS degrees in specific business programs (such as accounting).
The test takes four hours, and it consists of verbal and quantitative sections. Most graduate school admissions officers, however, focus
primarily on the "overall score," which ranges from 200 to 800.
The GMAT dates from 1953, when it was created by an organization now known as the Graduate Management Admission Council. Its purpose was to develop a standardized test that would help business schools select promising students.
A good rule of thumb is that you must get an overall score of at least 600 to be accepted by a reputable school. Such a score would mean that you were roughly in the upper half of all test-takers. However, prestigious schools require much higher scores. The average GMAT scores of persons accepted at such institutions recently were as follows:
- 714 - Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
- 711 - Stanford University
- 710 - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- 710 - University of California at Los Angeles
- 709 - Columbia University
- 708 - Harvard University
Scores above 700 equate, roughly, to the 90th percentile. Thus, unless you can break into this elite group of test-takers, you should probably forget about top-tier schools.
However, all is not lost. Excellent MBA programs are available from colleges and universities that accept students who score in the 600 to 700 range. Babson College, for example, is an excellent school, and its entering students have an average GMAT of 630.
If you can't score 540 (50th percentile) or above on the GMAT, you should perhaps consider another field. Alternatively, you can always get a degree from an online school that doesn't care about GMAT scores.
Comment Preview