There’s definitely a sea change among North American business schools when it comes to accepting the GRE. According to our 2012 survey of business school admissions officers*, 69% of business schools now give applicants the option of submitting scores from the GRE rather than the GMAT, the traditional exam required for MBA admissions. Thanks in large part to campaigning by the GRE test administrator, this percentage has steadily increased year-over-year since Kaplan first began tracking the issue in 2009, when only 24% of business schools said they accepted the GRE.
But while more MBA programs are offering the GRE alternative to prospective students, few applicants are taking the option. Roughly half of the business schools surveyed (46%) say fewer than 1 in 10 applicants submitted a GRE score this past admissions cycle. Data supports applicants’ wariness – while the majority of business schools (69%) say scores from both tests are viewed equally, 29% say that applicants who submit a GMAT score have an advantage over applicants who submit a GRE score.
In the business school admissions test arms race, increasing acceptance of the GRE may have hit a plateau, however. Of the 31% of business schools that remain GMAT-only, only 17% say they are likely to begin accepting the GRE for the next admissions cycle. Integrated Reasoning, the new GMAT section added in June 2012, may be a possible roadblock for its competitor: 24% of GMAT-only schools say the change, designed to make the GMAT more reflective of the MBA experience, makes it less likely they’ll begin accepting the GRE.
Our advice to applicants: As long as business schools signal the slightest advantage in taking the GMAT, it’s hard to see more applicants going the GRE route. We are telling students to take the GMAT if they plan to apply only to business school, but if they are unsure whether their paths will take them to graduate school or business school, taking the GRE may make sense.
Is this an issue that many of your students ask you about? It is on their radar? This will be an issue we’ll continue to tracks in the months and years ahead. We’d love to hear what you have to say about this.
A PDF version of the entire survey can be viewed and downloaded at:
https://www.kaptest.com/pdf_files/2012-B-School-Admissions-Officers-Survey.pdf
* For the 2012 survey, 265 business school admissions officers – including 17 from the nation’s top 25 MBA programs, as designated by U.S. News & World Report – were polled by telephone between August and September 2012.
