A strong score on the Graduate Management Admission Test can greatly increase a business school applicant’s chances of admission. However, what qualifies as a good GMAT score depends on the competitiveness of the MBA programs where a student applies and his or her demographic profile, according to MBA admissions experts.
“It’s definitely context-specific, depending on where you’ve set your sights,” says Arman Davtyan, assistant dean of enrollment management at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School in California. “A candidate will want to look at the profile of admitted students or incoming students to see where they are, both from a GPA standpoint and a test score standpoint.”
He says applicants should then ask, “What should I be shooting for to be considered a competitive candidate?”
Total GMAT scores range from 205 to 805 and are reported in increments of 10 points. The three sections — quantitative reasoning, verbal reasoning and data insights — are scored from 60 to 90 in increments of one point. Because the test format changed in early 2024, schools are more focused on percentiles rather than total scores, experts say.
[Read: What the GMAT Is and How to Prepare for the Test.]
A total score in the 60th percentile — about 580 — is considered competitive at Pepperdine and many other programs, Davtyan adds.
However, the bar is much higher at some of the top programs, which reported average scores of 717 or higher in the previous format, roughly equivalent to the 93rd percentile on the new format. The Labovitz School of Business and Economics at the University of Minnesota–Duluth reported the highest average GMAT score among incoming full-time students in fall 2023: 760, which is in the 99th percentile.
Many test-takers aimed for a score of 700 on the previous version of the GMAT, the Graduate Management Admissions Council notes on its website, but now “a score of 645 is equivalent to a 700 due to the new score scale. Therefore, while scores may look ‘lower’ in comparison, they aren’t.”
A 645 would put an applicant in about the 88th percentile on the new format, according to the GMAC, the test’s creator and adminisrator.
The average score among GMAT test-takers between 2019 and 2024 was around 553. But most top-25 programs will want to see applicants in the 85th percentile or higher — about a 640 total score — says Susan Cera, MBA admissions director at Stratus Admissions Counseling.
“There’s going to be people above that average and below that average,” she says. “It’s a holistic evaluation, so if you’re really strong or unique in some way, you can be below the average and still find success at a school.”
How to Score Well on the GMAT
Julia Shackelford took the GMAT once and got a perfect score. Her secret: 10 months of strategic test prep, using free resources and practice tests on mba.com supplemented with paid resources through Target Test Prep, which allows test-takers to tailor their prep to their target score.
While not every test-taker will require that much prep time, she encourages MBA hopefuls to not shortchange their study time.
“Give yourself time to overprepare because there’s a lot that it covers,” says Shackelford, who earned an undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Arkansas in 2015. “I think a lot of people do get caught in a shorter timeline and then they’re stressed because they don’t have time to do things. Of course you’re not going to do your best if you don’t have time.”
[How to Get Accepted to Multiple Top Business Schools]
Experts say most test-takers will benefit from between three and six months of preparation, though that timeline often depends on your testing needs, personal and work obligations, and money if you plan to use paid services.
“Give yourself time and give yourself grace,” Cera says. “It might mean taking a formal class. It might mean doing self-study, and there are lots of great resources out there. It might mean getting a tutor, and once you figure out what your rough spots are, to double down on those.”
At two hours and 15 minutes, the new format is nearly an hour shorter than the previous version. Test-takers have about two minutes to answer each question, something they should eventually become comfortable with, Shackelford says.
She recommends first preparing without time constraints to fully learn the content and what the test is asking. Eventually, the material and format should feel more comfortable, allowing you to work at a quicker pace.
As it gets closer to the test date, you should put yourself in as close to the testing environment as possible to acclimate to the conditions, including the adaptive format of the test, experts say.
“You really do have to mimic the testing conditions” to adequately train for the exam, Shackelford says. “It is exhausting. It’s a challenging affair.”
Schools Seek Balanced GMAT Scores
All three sections count equally toward the total score, and test-takers should aim for balanced scores across each section to show competence in the variety of disciplines covered in an MBA curriculum, Davtyan says. “We’re aiming for the highest scores possible when we’re taking the exam, but I think we also want to look at individual sections and see how the candidate is doing.”
However, the quantitative reasoning and data insights sections are particularly important, Cera says.
[READ: 3 Ways to Recover From a Bad MBA Interview]
“Those are the proxy for your preparedness for the quantitative rigor of the program,” she says. “The one caveat there is that if you’re a non-native English speaker, your verbal score better be good as well.”
Schools can also assess verbal skills through essays and interviews, so a low verbal score is less troubling than low scores on the other two sections, Cera says.
How to Address a Low GMAT Score
B-school experts stress that admissions is a holistic process and a low GMAT score typically isn’t enough to disqualify a candidate. A score in the 25th percentile or lower would give him pause, Davtyan says, but that’s when admissions officers would look at other academic strengths and qualities in an applicant’s profile as well as previous courses or work experience.
“In the interest of being holistic and giving candidates the benefit of the doubt, we do avoid having to make or break decisions based on the score,” Davtyan says. “But if the score is really low, then we’re going to look at other things in the file.”
In addition to retaking the test and aiming for a higher score, applicants may address a low score in an interview or an optional essay. Schools don’t allow applicants to “superscore” by combining the best score from each section across multiple attempts; they instead look at the highest total score. But test-takers who score higher on a specific section than on the test score that’s submitted can mention such scores in an essay, experts say.
“Don’t leave the admission committee to speculate what may have happened,” Davtyan says. “Sometimes candidates have a little ambivalence about not wanting to sound like they’re making excuses. How you frame your comments is going to be important, but if there’s something that sticks out and is really glaring, I always think it’s better to address it proactively in the application.”
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What Is a Good GMAT Score? originally appeared on usnews.com
