GMAT Score: Report or Cancel?

You’ve almost survived Test Day—but not before the GMAT asks you what may be the toughest question of all…

Report or cancel your GMAT score?

Good news for those facing the dreaded GMAT reporting decision. As of June 27, 2015, the GMAT allows you to actually see your score before consigning it to oblivion or taking the red pill and sending it to schools.

Previously, the makers of the GMAT gave you the option to report or cancel your GMAT Score without showing your results. If you cancelled, you never saw your score. If you reported, you risked giving the admissions committee a lower score than you wanted. In such situations, most experts counseled that, unless you left a good number of questions blank or had taken ill during the test in a way that you know adversely impacted your performance, you should report.

Now, your score will be a known quantity prior to deciding what to do. What was once a maddening dilemma is now a little more manageable. However, you’ll still want to make the most informed decision. What’s a GMAT test taker to do?

Set a target score for Test Day

You’re now operating with concrete data—your score. To help make things easier on Test Day, you should have a good idea of how high you need to be scoring before ever walking into the Testing Center. This goal score should also shape your prep from the very first practice test you take right up to Test Day.

Begin by researching competitive scores for your target MBA programs. You’ll need to dig deeper than merely skimming MBA program web pages or reading US News & World Report’s business school rankings. Talk to admissions counselors and professors at the schools. Then, consider the following:

1. Schools often advertise the average GMAT score of their currently enrolled students. Presumably, you want to beat that average to win merit-based scholarships and other advantages.
2. If your undergrad GPA is lower than what a school sees as competitive, or if you don’t have intriguing work experience on your resume, the GMAT score you report will have to be correspondingly higher to offset those liabilities.
3. Find out whether your schools merely pay lip service to the essay and the integrated reasoning sections or value them as tie-breakers and key determiners of business student aptitude?

Safety, reach, just right

Once you know the goal score that will position you for admission to the MBA programs of your choice, you’re ready to engage in thinking strategically about the GMAT score you’ll report or cancel. You don’t want to walk into the test with a line-in-the-sand threshold that will increase Test Day stress and hamper your performance.

Instead, approach your score cancellation threshold the same way you strategize your pursuit of business schools themselves—using the Safety, Reach, and Just Right spectrum:

• Safety: You already know the schools that, given your GPA, work experience, and minimal GMAT score, will be your “safeties”—MBA programs that, though they wouldn’t be your dream schools, would nonetheless be feasible options if your choices are limited at the application deadline.
• Reach: Speaking of dream schools, isn’t that what your pursuit of an MBA is all about—to get the best possible degree and enjoy being challenged to the utmost? These are the schools that will demand the absolute top GMAT score you can muster.
• Just Right: Dream schools are the ultimate goal and safeties are what you would settle for given no other choice. Just-Right schools fit your application portfolio and call for an achievable GMAT score.

Leave time to retake

It’s the end of the test. You see your score. Where does it fit into your spectrum? If the score hits the range of dream schools, well, you shouldn’t hesitate at all to report it. If the score is just right, you’ve likely secured for yourself excellent opportunities at a solid MBA program. But what if your score is in only in your Safety School range?

If all along you were perfectly willing to attend a safety school, then there’s no risk in reporting. Even if after reporting your score you feel that you may be settling for less, you may still have time to prep again for a higher score next month, as the Graduate Management Admission Council has now shortened the retake timeline.

In the meantime, you have a GMAT score that will enable you to get into a school, period. Moreover, MBA programs look only at your best set of scores. A lower GMAT score in the past only shows that you redoubled your effort and came back with something better.

So, even with GMAC’s recent change allowing you to see your score, things haven’t changed much on the prep side. Cancel only if you know that your score was adversely impacted by a physical ailment or Test Day performance anxiety that prevented you from getting to a large number of questions.

Sign up for a free GMAT practice test to find out how you’re scoring. Then, work on developing your business school application strategy at our free live online MBA Admissions Seminar.

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