The new GRE – GMAT killer?

At one point, the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) was the de facto exam students took to enter business school. But in 2006, the creators of the GMAT, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), decided to sever ties with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which until then had administered the exam. This move, which ended GMAC’s non-compete clause on the ETS, allowed the ETS to challenge GMAC’s dominance over business school tests.

Since 2006, the ETS has been campaigning in schools to accept GRE as an alternative to GMAT. According to an ETS press release, “Approximately 450 MBA programs worldwide now accept the GRE test, including 45 percent of the top 100 US programs from US News & World Report and seven of the top 10 global MBA programs according to The Financial Times. “These schools include some of the best business schools in the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton at UPenn, Stern at NYU, and Sloan at MIT.

Additionally, the revised GRE, which will be released in August this year, is intended in part to make the exam more attractive to business schools. The ETS website says: “ETS has revised the test to better reflect the type of thinking you will do in graduate school or business and to enhance your test-taking experience. New question types now align more closely with the skills you need to succeed in demanding graduate and business school programs. ” Eliminating analogies and antonyms, for example, shifts the focus from memorization to analysis and understanding.

It is no wonder that more and more schools are beginning to accept the GRE. The ETS estimates that there are approximately 700 GRE test centers in 160 countries around the world; Contrast this with a 2010 GMAC press release, which estimates that there are 500 test centers in 110 countries. Schools that choose to accept the GRE can expand their applicant pools making it more convenient for international applicants applying to US business schools in this age of globalization. Additionally, the decision to accept the GRE also benefits students. Those who are trying to decide between going to graduate school and going to business school don’t have to choose one over the other or worry about taking two exams (and paying two registration fees); they can simply take the GRE and apply for both. . Testmasters recommends that prospective students take both tests and submit the highest score.

With the upcoming release of the new GRE and the momentum that the ETS has built up over the past few years, we can expect to see more and more business schools accepting the GRE for admissions. Of course, the GMAC is not simply playing with its thumbs as the ETS courts its core market; The GMAT is scheduled for a major facelift in 2013 to give the exam more company-specific content.

But who knows? By then it may be too late.

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