Integrated Reasoning Asserts Value in GMAT Score Evaluation

It’s taken a while, but it seems that business schools are finally placing value in GMAT’s integrated reasoning (IR) section, a separate part of the admissions exam that was added a little over three years ago.

Last year, a majority of admissions officers (60%) did not feel that the separate score achieved by MBA applicants on the IR section represented “an important part of their evaluation of a prospective student’s overall GMAT score” on the basis of a survey of admissions officers carried out by Kaplan Test Prep. This number was actually a fraction higher than the 57% who answered similarly in 2013, leading many to speculate whether the IR section may have been a failed change on the part of the GMAT’s governing body, GMAC.

However, the suggestion is that business schools may now have worked out a way to ascribe value to a section which asks test takers to evaluate information across charts, graphs and data tables, according to the results of Kaplan Test Prep’s latest survey for 2015. More than half (59%) of respondents from just over 200 US schools, as well as five from the UK, now say that the integrated reasoning score is at least ‘somewhat important’ to their evaluation of a candidate’s overall GMAT score.

“Now that MBA programs have an additional year’s worth of data on the integrated reasoning section and have become more familiar with what it measures, it’s understandable why more have decided that it should be an important part of how they evaluate an applicant’s overall GMAT score,” said Kaplan Test Prep’s executive director of pre-business and pre-graduate programs, Brian Carlidge.

IR can ‘distinguish you’ says Kaplan Test Prep

Of course, the fact that a test taker’s GMAT score remains valid for up to five years is probably the clincher here. With three years gone since the integrated reasoning section’s launch, there simply won’t be quite so many submissions arriving at business schools without this separate score. This makes it easier for schools to take it into account while still drawing fair comparisons between candidates. Indeed, with the expectation that IR’s importance will only increase from this point on, Kaplan Test Prep emphasizes the way in which it could make an individual’s candidacy stand out – for better, or for worse:

“Doing well on it (IR) can distinguish you in a positive way if your performance on other sections of the exam like quantitative, verbal or analytical writing assessment is lacking. A high score on IR can give you that competitive edge. On the flip side, a low score can hurt you,” Carlidge added.