In its latest press release on this Sunday, the GMAC released the test-taking figures for testing year 2012(July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012) and we thought what a better way for us to get started on this forum than to provide some snappy bits.
The number of GMAT-test takers hit a record high of 286,000 in the 2012 testing year. This is the highest ever number of test-takers in GMAT's history and is an 11% increase over the previous year's figure of 265,000. Historically, it has been observed that the number of test-takers increase before the change in the format of any standardized test so the rush to take the GMAT before the addition of the Integrated reasoning section this June may have led to the increase.
China saw the most massive increase in the number of test-takers with a record 58,000 Chinese taking the GMAT in this testing year. This is a whopping increase of 45% over the last year's figure of 40,000. What is interesting about the Chinese test-takers also is that women account for around 2/3rd of the test-takers and males account for the rest 1/3rd. This makes China the only country in which the number of female test-takers is more than the males.
India reversed the fall in the number of GMAT test-takers from previous years and recorded its highest ever number of test-takers. 30,000 Indian test-takers took the GMAT in this testing year, an increase of 19% over the last year's figure of 26,000.
If all these figures are any indicators, the application volumes are expected to go up this year and will reverse the decline in volumes that MBA programs have been witnessing for the last 2 years. Last year,nearly 62% of the business schools in the US reported a decline in the number of applicants for their 2 year MBA programs.
What this means for the candidates is that the getting through top business schools this year will get tougher than the last year. Business Schools this year are expecting heavy round one volumes.
To read the press release from the GMAC, click
here