A whopping 85 percent of U.S. business schools now accept the GRE as an admissions test alternative to the GMAT, according to a 2014 survey by Kaplan Test Prep. That’s up from only 24 percent of business schools who said they accepted the GRE in 2009, when Kaplan first began tracking the issue. GRE acceptance by business schools has been growing steadily year over year, Kaplan reports.
But even as more schools report accepting scores from the GRE, most MBA applicants are still choosing to submit scores from the more traditional GMAT. More than half of the admissions officers surveyed by Kaplan this year reported that only one in 10 or fewer applicants chose to submit GRE scores instead of GMAT scores, representing a slight increase from Kaplan’s past surveys.
Seventy-eight percent of MBA programs report that they view scores from both tests equally, but 18 percent of programs say that applicants who submit GMAT scores have an advantage over those who submit GRE scores.
“The trend line for business schools that accept the GRE as an admissions alternative to the GMAT has been unmistakable over the past five years,” Brian Carlidge, executive director of pre-business and pre-graduate programs for Kaplan Test Prep, said in a statement. “What was once seen as an almost exotic admissions policy by business schools has become nearly ubiquitous.”
Carlidge advises prospective applicants who are trying to decide which exam to take to contact their target schools to ask whether they have a preference for one exam over the other. “We also advise students to take the GMAT if some of the schools to which they intend on applying do not accept the GRE,” he added. “While the GRE is widely accepted, the only exam that is universally accepted is the GMAT.”
Learn more about Kaplan’s 2014 survey of business school admissions officers.
