GRE Increasingly Popular with Students and Business Schools: MBA News

The 2012/13 testing year saw a record number of business school applicants take the GRE test as opposed to the GMAT according to test provider, ETS, with around 10% indicating a preference for the former. Statistics from the first half of 2013/14 (July-January) also indicate further growth, with a year-on-year comparison revealing an increase of 38% in people taking the GRE as part of the MBA admissions process.

As highlighted in a recent TopMBA.com article, 2013 was a very strong year for the GRE overall, with 731,000 prospective graduate students taking the test – the second-highest ever annual total.

It will take a lot to challenge the status of the GMAT as the top dog in the MBA admissions world. 6000 business and management programs have been accepting the qualification for over half a century. Its long standing reputation is one of the reasons for this.

“The GMAT scores are a good indicator and predictor of student success… the exam allows us to gauge quality in terms of providing a solid benchmark…it’s a starting point of evaluating a candidate’s holistic profile…we start from there and [and move on to] professional experience, academic performance, life experience” says Amanda Barth, director of MBA admissions at the College of William & Mary, Mason School of Business on the GMAT website.

Why choose the GRE?

“The GRE Program offers many great benefits to test takers …it's these great benefits that are driving more and more MBA applicants to choose the GRE revised General Test," says David Payne, vice president of global education at ETS.

80% of the 2015 U.S. News & World Report top 100 business schools and the top 10 institutions on the Financial Times 2014 Global MBA Ranking accept the GRE as part of the MBA admissions process. Indeed, 2013 saw an 8% increase in the number of business schools willing to accept the GRE, taking the total to over 1000. "We have heard from schools that they are seeing anywhere from 10% to 30% of their MBA applicants presenting GRE scores, and we expect this number to continue to grow," Payne predicts.

The ScoreSelect system, unique to the GRE gives students a degree of freedom and control that they previously didn’t have by allowing students to send their most recent scores, all of their scores or pick and choose any (one or more) from the last five years. Students can also preview, skip and go back to questions and also change answers, giving candidates the freedom to employ their own exam strategies, unlike the GMAT.