Welcome to MBA Podcaster—the only source for cutting-edge information and advice on the MBA application process. The Graduate Management Admission Test or GMAT—you’ve heard of it and you know you have to take it. When should you start studying? Should you take a test prep course? Can a GMAT score make or break your chances of getting into top programs? We’ll take a look inside the GMAT, the myths you should know, what admissions officers are saying about it, and help you find the best ways to get prepared for the test. It’s arguably the most difficult part of the application process, and that dreaded GMAT exam might be lurking in the back of your mind.

But admissions director, Liz Riley Hargrove, from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business says, “Starting early enough in the process really gives you a significant advantage.” Riley Hargrove isn’t just talking about the GMAT. “Most students give themselves anywhere from 8 to 12 months of preparation time before they actually apply for admission; meaning they’re doing the research on the different schools, they’re preparing their recommenders, and studying and preparing for the GMAT.”

But if you haven’t given yourself a lot of leeway to study for the test, don’t fret says Larry Rudner, Vice President of Research and Development at the Graduate Management Admission Council. He says you could start as soon as possible, and there are plenty of ways to practice. The last thing you want to do Rudner says is wing it. “People that walk in cold always end up coming back and taking the test another time.” And even if you’re lacking in time, there’s something far worse than going in cold says Larry Rudner. “We have stories of some bizarre activities that people do to try to set up systems to cheat. We have had people where they’ve had somebody go in and take the test for somebody else. Both guys got caught; scores were revoked; degrees were revoked. These people lost their careers. But the whole concept to me is that you’re putting so much energy into that, where if you put that energy into studying and preparing, you’ll probably gain more than you’re going to from this dishonest activity.” And one more thing says GMAC’s Larry Rudner, don’t go by any urban myths about the test. “There’s a misnomer that there are all these games that you can play and things that you can do to gain on the test. These urban myths don’t pan out. One of the common myths is that the first ten items are really critical and, basically, determine your GMAT score. That’s not true. And it not a matter of so many A’s and so many B’s in the answers—all these other games that people do to gain on the system. Your scoring, in the end, is a function of all the items you’ve taken with a severe penalty for not completing. So, if you spend your time following one of these urban myths, and spend all your time on the first ten questions and you don’t finish, you’re really going to be hurting yourself.” Rudner says you want to study and be familiar with the types of questions on the test, so that your score will reflect your true ability. So, first thing first he says, know that the GMAT isn’t a pencil and paper test. “This is an adaptive test. What that means is we’ve provided a unique test to each test taker, and we estimate a student’s ability as they’re progressing through the test. What this basically means is everybody gets a test tailored to their responses on the test.” Now, why put applicants through all the torture of studying and preparing for this standardized test? GMAC’s Larry Rudner tells us, there is reason to GMAT madness. “We first start off with an examination of what faculty members have told us are the important skills for success in business education. So, right now, schools are telling us this includes the ability to reason quantitatively, evaluating quantitative information, the ability to critically evaluate written arguments, and the ability to express their ideas in writing. Faculty members are expecting these skills, so they can teach a rigorous curriculum. Students expect their fellow classmates to have these skills, so class time isn’t wasted and class time is used efficiently and effectively. Note that these are higher order skills, not basic skills. Schools don’t want—and students don’t want classmates—that can just recite facts. If you think about it, business education and business decisions are about the high-level skill of evaluating the data on hand and making decisions, often, with imperfect information.” So, you think that studying for the GMAT actually correlates to success in the classroom? “Absolutely! We’ve got lots of documentation on that. We’ve conducted, literally, thousands of studies in schools looking at the validity of the GMAT—the correlation of the GMAT with first-year grades. And I should add that it correlates much higher than undergraduate grade-point average. So, we have an independent measure that’s not noisy due to differences in program and things of that kind.” And admissions officers agree the GMAT is a good indicator of how well students will do in the classroom. More importantly, they want to make sure you can make it through the tough first year of business school.

Monica Gray is MBA Admissions Director at the McDonough School of Business of Georgetown University. “Because MBA program curricula, particularly in the first year, are extremely quantitative; the GMAT is an effective assessment tool in evaluating their ability to get through that part of the curriculum—which is not to say that they wouldn’t do well in courses that are not as quantitative. But since the majority of the courses in the first year are, it’s important to make sure they can move through that. If you have a particularly academically rigorous program, you certainly don’t want to put a student in a situation where they simply don’t have the capability to manage the program and to get through the course work. In the admissions process, what we want to make sure of is that students will be comfortable with the workload and the information that’s being shared, and that they’ll get a lot out of it and be able to manage through it. What you don’t want to do is bring someone in who simply doesn’t have the capability of getting through your program. And then, they’re not successful and they can’t continue.”

Jett Pihakis is co-director of MBA admissions at the Haas School of Business of the University of California Berkeley. “The Graduate Management Admissions Council will provide for any school with participation in the validity study service where we provide them with data in terms of our first-year grade point average, test scores, work experience, etcetera for students that come into the class and have found, indeed, that the best predictor of first-year grade point average is going to be a combination of the student’s grade point average and GMAT score. Both are predictive individually, but they are more predictive when used in combination.”

Fuqua’s Admissions Director, Liz Riley Hargrove, also agrees there is a correlation between GMAT scores and first year success. But she says, “What we have found is that the undergraduate record has the highest correlation to how a student will perform in the MBA program. Actually, the quantitative sub-score and the undergraduate record have the highest correlation to how a student will perform. So that gives us some flexibility, obviously, because we can take students with a very wide range of GMAT scores, as long as their undergraduate grades are solid. Riley Hargrove says many applicants come to her asking what the average GMAT score is for students admitted to Fuqua. She says it’s above 700, but that number is misleading. “Applicants sometimes assume that that’s the minimum that they have to have. I think probably a better way to phrase it is: ‘What is the 80% range for GMAT scores?’ For Fuqua, it’s 630-750. And that’s a better indication of where the majority of our students fall. And then, also keep in mind that there are 10% that are lower and 10% that are higher.” Liz Riley Hargrove says there’s no cut-off score at Fuqua and getting that stellar score isn’t a ticket into the school. “A GMAT score is what it is. It’s that one-time shot at a standardized test. So, we don’t just look at a 700+ or an 800 GMAT score and say, ‘You’re definitely in, because your GMAT is at this level.’ We deny people with GMAT scores in the 700’s and we admit students with GMAT scores in the 600’s. You’ve got to have all the other components that make a successful competitive applicant to be able to gain admission.”

Admissions Director Jett Pihakis says the Haas Admissions Department views the GMAT score in much the same way. A high score doesn’t mean a guaranteed admission. “I think there’s a misperception out there that if you have a very, very high GMAT, that’s your ticket in to a top business school. It is absolutely not the case. In fact, we didn’t run the statistic this year; last year when we ran the statistic, we found that we actually denied admission to 75% of the applicants that had 760 or higher GMAT. So, clearly there are many, many other things that we’re paying attention to above and beyond the GMAT. And, says Pihakis, even if you score lower than the average, you still have a chance. “For every application, regardless of whether or not the GMAT is low, we’re looking at several different things. So, the three key things that we’re looking at as we evaluate an application are academic background and academic aptitude; then we’re looking at professional experience and leadership qualities, and then we’re looking at personal qualities. Those are the three key areas. So, under academic aptitude, we gauge that using undergraduate and/or graduate transcripts as well as the GMAT score. Those are looked at in combination with one another. For individuals who are non-native speakers of English, the TOEFL score would also play a role there as well. So if, specifically, we’re trying to gauge academic aptitude and we saw somebody that had a lower GMAT score, we would, of course, look at their undergraduate record to pay particular attention to, not only their grade point average, but to what courses they chose to take, how the grades were in those courses, what the trend in grades was over time, what percentage of courses they took using the pass/fail option, and how many analytical or quantitative courses they took. We’re looking at these things for all of our applicants, regardless of whether or not they have a high GMAT score.”

If your GMAT score is leaning toward disappointment, Liz Riley Hargrove says focus on the other aspects of your application. “There could be some strengths in a candidate’s portfolio that could outweigh any concern we would have about a lower test score. By that I mean, if you have a student that has a history of not testing well, and let’s say their GMAT score was below our average, but they had a 3.9 grade point average in a pretty difficult academic major as an undergraduate student; that could offset the concern that we might have about a lower GMAT score.”

Jett Pihakis says that the GMAT isn’t any more important than all the other components. “The GMAT is really a very small piece of a very large puzzle. So, we certainly pay attention to it. It definitely has predictive value for how a student is going to do in their first year here at Berkeley, but it’s not weighted in any particular fashion. No element of the application is assigned a certain weight. Every single application is reviewed by a minimum of two readers; often three readers and sometimes four readers, and there are so many elements to an application.”

Admissions directors say that it’s really up to you whether or not you want to take a test preparation course. GMAC’s Larry Rudner says that just by registering for the test, you’ll get a lot of study material. “When you register for the test at MBA.com, you can get our free GMAT-prep software. This is almost the identical software that we use in the testing situation. These are our former live GMAT items. This is real close to the real thing. You can use this software to get your pacing down, and be sure that you’re going to be answering each of the questions. And the pacing and finishing, again, is critical. We recently published a new, revised 11th edition to the official guide to the GMAT review. These are, again, retired GMAT items. What’s unique is that these items are in difficulty order. So, once you find out your relative ability, you can jump there. There are some diagnostic tests in that package.”

Test prep courses come in all forms and sizes. You can get a private session, take a live on-line course, or study in class with other students. Programs usually run about three months, but it may be worth the time and money. We looked at two test prep companies and each offers different techniques to prepare you for the exam. If you’re shopping around, you’ll want to listen to this. Here’s Zeke Vanderhoek with Manhattan GMAT: “As our name implies, we only teach the GMAT. We have a variety of programs. We teach in-person classes; we have live on-line classes; we teach private tutoring, and we do one-day workshops. We see students from every ability level and every skill level, but most of our client base is particularly interested in top 20 business schools. So, our client base is typically not interested in mediocre scores. They’re interested in breaking 600; they’re interested in breaking 700. A lot of them are interested in breaking 750. Now, the GMAT is a computer adaptive exam, and that means that to get a high score—to achieve a 700+ score—you actually have to do something different than you might have done on an SAT. You have to consistently answer very difficult questions accurately. It’s not enough to get a few of them right. You have to be consistent at a particular ability level of question. So, our emphasis in our test prep courses is much less about test prep tricks and much more about conceptually understanding the math; conceptually understanding the grammar and the reasoning, so that students can increase their skill level and build their skill level and get those harder questions right.”

Now, here’s Chris Snynder with Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions: “What we’ve done is we’ve identified three core areas that are essential to complete preparation. And it starts with the very foundation—the meat and potatoes—which would be the content that would be essential for any exam such as the GMAT. So there’s no getting around the fact that you do have to know your basic algebra, arithmetic and geometry and your three, four, five triangles. And also, regarding the verbal, you have to know the grammar and how to identify a misplaced modifier and the like and so forth. So, we definitely give our students all the help that they need with the content. And then, there’s also critical thinking. It’s not just about knowing your stuff, but you have to know how to think your way through the test on test day. You have to have a specific strategy on each and every single question type, so we help our students with that. And then, what we feel really sets us apart at Kaplan, is that we address crisis prevention which means that, basically, you can have the critical thinking and you can understand the content, but if you don’t know exactly how to make sure that you stay in control on test day, then it might not go as planned. So the best way to address crisis prevention is with the most realistic practice. And we have a part of our course called “The Ultimate Practice Test” where students actually have the opportunity to actually go into an actual Pearson Professional Center and have a dry run of a practice test in the actual facility and get a sense of what that environment is like.”

Applicants preparing for the GMAT exam, Fuqua’s Liz Riley Hargrove gives this last piece of advice: “I think if you start early enough in the process, you have the ability to control the factors that you can control. Because if you look at this whole process as pieces to a puzzle, there are some factors that you can control and there are some factors that you cannot control. Your undergraduate record is what it is. It’s a summary of your academic experience from however many years ago that you finished it. The GMAT is one standardized test, but you can control how well-prepared you are for an interview. You can control how you relate your experiences in your essays and just how you tell your story.”

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