The new GRE – GMAT Killer?

At one point, the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) was the de facto exam students took to get into business school. But in 2006, the creators of the GMAT, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), decided to sever ties with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which until then administered the exam. This move, which ended GMAC’s non-compete clause on ETS, allowed ETS to challenge GMAC’s stranglehold on business school tests.

Since 2006, ETS has been campaigning for schools to accept the GRE as an alternative to the GMAT. According to an ETS press release, “about 450 MBA programs worldwide now accept the GRE test, including 45 percent of US News & World Report’s top 100 US programs and seven of the Top 10 Global MBA Programs According to The Financial Times.” These schools include some of the best business schools in the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton at UPenn, Stern at NYU, and Sloan at MIT.

Also, the revised GRE, due to be released in August this year, is partly intended to make the test more attractive to business schools. The ETS website states: “ETS has revised the test to better reflect the kind of thinking you’ll have in graduate or business school and to improve your test-taking experience. The new question types now more closely align with the skills you need to succeed in today’s demanding graduate programs and business schools.” Eliminating analogies and antonyms, for example, shifts the focus from memorization to analysis and understanding.

It’s no surprise that more and more schools are beginning to accept the GRE. The ETS estimates that there are approximately 700 GRE test centers in 160 countries around the world; Compare this to a 2010 GMAC press release, which estimates there are 500 test centers in 110 countries. Schools that choose to accept the GRE can broaden their applicant pools making it more convenient for international applicants applying to US business schools in this age of globalization. Furthermore, the decision to accept the GRE is also beneficial for the students. Those who are trying to decide between going to graduate school or going to business school don’t have to choose one over the other or worry about taking two exams (and paying two registration fees), they can simply take the GRE and apply. to both. Testmasters recommends that prospective students take both tests and submit the higher score.

With the upcoming release of the new GRE and the momentum the ETS has built up in recent years, we can expect to see more and more business schools accepting the GRE for admissions. Of course, the GMAC isn’t just playing along while the ETS courts its core market: The GMAT is scheduled for a major revamp in 2013 to give the test more business-specific content.

But who knows? By then it might be too late.