The average score on the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) going up at 10 of the Top 25 MBA programmes in the US last year shows keen competition as ever at the top.
16 of the top 25 U.S. schools are reporting higher GMATs since 2010, with just eight programmes reporting a decline in average scores.
In the last five years, for example, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has boosted average GMAT scores by 10 full points to a record 728 last year from 718 in 2010. In fact, the average GMAT score for Wharton’s latest entering class exceeds Harvard Business School for the first time ever. Wharton is now two points higher than Harvard’s 726.
Chicago’s Booth School of Business saw a nine points increase to a record 724 in the past five years.
It is not only the top schools experiencing the rise. Vanderbilt University’s Owen School has increased its average GMAT score by 15 points to 688 since 2010. Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business had the highest single gain of 30 points to 666 last year from 636 five years earlier.
B-School representatives put such gains to a concerted effort by leadership to boost the school’s standing. Sadly, the reverse is true when GMAT scores go the other way. Double-digit declines, in particular, are a bright red sign that a school is losing the competitive fight for the best and the brightest.
Schools with stable or increasing GMATs are generally re-investing in their MBA programmes, while those with declining scores are more often than not using the revenue to fund other parts of the university as per sources.
The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flager Business School led all Top 25 in posting a 14-point rise in GMATs to 697 for its latest entering MBA class. The University of Washington’s Foster School reported a 12-point jump to 682 last year, while UCLA’s Anderson School of Management saw an equally impressive nine-point increase to 715.
Contents
| School | Five-Year Change | Average 2014 GMAT | Average 2010 GMAT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michigan State (Broad) | +30 | 666 | 636 |
| Illinois-Urbana-Champaign | +18 | 659 | 641 |
| Vanderbilt (Owen) | +15 | 688 | 673 |
| Iowa (Tippie) | +12 | 669 | 657 |
| North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) | +11 | 697 | 686 |
| Pennsylvania (Wharton) | +10 | 728 | 718 |
| Chicago (Booth) | +9 | 724 | 715 |
| Virginia (Darden) | +7 | 706 | 699 |
| Georgetown (McDonough) | +7 | 691 | 684 |
| Rochester (Simon) | +7 | 684 | 677 |
| School | Five-Year Change | 2014 Average GMAT | 2010 Average GMAT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purdue (Krannert) | -37 | 617 | 654 |
| UC-Irvine | -16 | 657 | 673 |
| Ohio State (Fisher) | -15 | 661 | 676 |
| Minnesota (Carlson) | -11 | 683 | 694 |
| Boston University | -11 | 670 | 681 |
| Brigham Young (Marriott) | -8 | 667 | 675 |
| Maryland (Smith) | -8 | 662 | 670 |
| Duke (Fuqua) | -7 | 690 | 697 |
| Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) | -7 | 687 | 694 |
(In bold- B-Schools that offer one-year MBA programme, exclusively or in addition to a two-year MBA pogramme)
| B-School | 2014 GMAT | 2013 GMAT | 2012 GMAT | 2011 GMAT | 2010 GMAT | 5-Year Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Stanford GSB | 732 | 732 | 729 | 739 | 728 | +4 |
| 2. Harvard Business School | 726 | 727 | 724 | 724 | 724 | +2 |
| 3. Penn (Wharton) | 728 | 725 | 718 | 718 | 718 | +10 |
| 4. Chicago (Booth) | 724 | 723 | 720 | 719 | 715 | +9 |
| 5. Columbia Business School | 716 | 716 | 715 | 716 | 712 | +4 |
| 6. Northwestern (Kellogg) | 713 | 713 | 708 | 712 | 714 | -1 |
| 7. MIT (Sloan) | 713 | 713 | 710 | 710 | 718 | -5 |
| 8. Dartmouth (Tuck) | 716 | 718 | 717 | 718 | 716 | ——- |
| 9. Duke (Fuqua) | 690 | 694 | 690 | 689 | 697 | -7 |
| 10. UC-Berkeley (Haas) | 717 | 714 | 715 | 715 | 718 | -1 |
| 11. Michigan (Ross) | 702 | 704 | 703 | 703 | 704 | -2 |
| 12. Yale School of Management | 719 | 714 | 717 | 719 | 722 | -3 |
| 13. Virginia (Darden) | 706 | 706 | 703 | 701 | 699 | +7 |
| 14. UCLA (Anderson) | 715 | 706 | 704 | 704 | 710 | +5 |
| 15. Cornell (Johnson) | 692 | 691 | 694 | 691 | 687 | +5 |
| 16. New York (Stern) | 721 | 721 | 720 | 719 | 715 | +6 |
| 17. Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) | 687 | 691 | 693 | 686 | 694 | -7 |
| 18. North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) | 697 | 683 | 692 | 689 | 686 | +11 |
| 19. Texas-Austin (McCombs) | 690 | 690 | 692 | 692 | 684 | +6 |
| 20. Emory (Goizueta) | 678 | 681 | 677 | 681 | 680 | -2 |
| 20. Indiana (Kelley) | 668 | 664 | 664 | 670 | 664 | +4 |
| 22. Georgetown (McDonough) | 691 | 688 | 683 | 686 | 684 | +7 |
| 23. Washington (Foster) | 682 | 670 | 670 | 675 | 681 | +1 |
| 24. Washington Univ. (Olin) | 699 | 696 | 698 | 696 | 695 | +4 |
| 25. Vanderbilt (Owen) | 688 | 688 | 682 | 695 | 673 | +15 |
| B-School | 2014 GMAT | 2013 GMAT | 2012 GMAT | 2011 GMAT | 2010 GMAT | 5-Year Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26. Southern California (Marshall) | 684 | 686 | 690 | 687 | 690 | -6 |
| 27. Rice (Jones) | 676 | 676 | 673 | 673 | 672 | +4 |
| 28. Ohio State (Fisher) | 661 | 666 | 668 | 674 | 676 | -15 |
| 29. Wisconsin-Madison | 668 | 676 | 675 | 680 | 675 | -7 |
| 30. Maryland (Smith) | 662 | 654 | 656 | 661 | 670 | -8 |
| 31. Brigham Young (Marriott) | 667 | 665 | 672 | 670 | 675 | -8 |
| 32. Penn State (Smeal) | 649 | 645 | 643 | 650 | 650 | -1 |
| 33. Rochester (Simon) | 684 | 680 | 680 | 675 | 677 | +7 |
| 34. Texas A&M (Mays) | 647 | 648 | 649 | 647 | 646 | +1 |
| 35. Michigan State (Broad) | 666 | 655 | 641 | 638 | 636 | +30 |
| 36. Minnesota (Carlson) | 683 | 686 | 692 | 686 | 694 | -11 |
| 36. Notre Dame (Mendoza) | 686 | 690 | 687 | 692 | 685 | +1 |
| 38. Georgia Tech (Scheller) | 676 | 678 | 678 | 674 | 678 | -2 |
| 39. Purdue (Krannert) | 617 | 607 | 643 | 635 | 654 | -37 |
| 40. Illinois-Urbana-Champaign | 659 | 661 | 650 | 650 | 641 | +18 |
| 41. Arizona State (Carey) | 673 | 673 | 676 | 674 | 672 | +6 |
| 42. Boston University | 670 | 682 | 680 | 684 | 681 | -11 |
| 43. Pittsburgh (Katz) | 620 | 622 | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| 44. UC-Davis | 688 | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| 45. Wake Forest (Babcock) | 652 | 632 | 648 | 651 | 653 | -1 |
| 46. UC-Irvine (Merage) | 657 | 654 | 657 | 663 | 673 | -16 |
| 47. Southern Methodist (Cox) | 650 | 650 | 639 | 641 | 643 | +7 |
| 48. Boston College (Carroll) | 664 | 666 | 666 | 656 | 662 | +2 |
| 49. Iowa (Tippie) | 669 | 671 | 665 | 666 | 657 | +12 |
| 50. Georgia (Terry) | 646 | 645 | 637 | NA | NA | NA |