Best GMAT Score for Top 25 PhD

Question

Just throwing open a new discussion. 

What will be the average GMAT scores for PhD Programs in general at top ranking universities ? Is there a difference for an international applicant to US Universities ? How about European Univs Like LBS and Insead ?

Praetorian · Answer

This is what i think based on a study of some Ph.D programs. if you have any data to share with us, do post it here. 

For Ph.D programs, i think the higher the GMAT the better. While a good GMAT score wont get us an admit necessarly, a low score will definitely be a disaadvantage. 

In general, I would like to think 710-720 would be a good estimate. of course ,the number may wary every year.

I would think any GMAT Score above 720-730 would be a very competitive one. (Especially, with a Quant greater than 95%). For programs like finance, the higher the Quant , the better. 

For international applicants, again, the higher the better. Depending on the area one wants to do a Ph.D, the competition can be severe to extremely severe. In general, these programs take in two to five students each year. So a low score will be a handicap. 

In general,
A well known undergraduate university, Good UGPA, Great GPA , Good GMAT, good recommendations and a strong math background with a bit of research experience would be a good profile of any applicant who wishes to get into a Top 10-15 school.

Sameer, kindly correct/add to what i said here. i am sure you have a better idea about this.

Regards
Praetorian

Sameer · Answer

When I had thought about applying , I started collecting base data about PhD Programs of all top Universities. I am attaching an excel sheet that gives some of the data at most universities. Some of them were not in my list (eg Wharton) since they asked for GRE scores and I was not in a mood to give GRE as well as GMAT. The file also has other fields like whether TOEFL is required by a particular univ and how many recommendation letters to be sent for that particualr univ etc. 

The data shows that for the top 20 Univs, including LBS and INSEAD, the scores for PhD programs hover around 700 - THAT is an average. For International applicants, I have to agree with Praet that the scores will be higher !!.

Any experiences ?

Praetorian · Answer

thanks for that excel sheet. 

One thing that caught my attention was that the average GMAT Scores. are those for OPerations Management OR are those overall average GMAT scores?

A student of LBS once mentioned that the Average GMAT score for LBS was 730. In the sheet, it says 690. I wonder if that guy was talking about the average scores for the department of finance. 

A note to Other guys who wish to apply: remember that the GMAT scores are only a guide. Do not make your decisions to apply to a university ONLY on the average GMAT score.

Regards
Praetorian

Praetorian · Answer

Thanks for that. 

Sameer, any other insights from your application experience. We can have start many other threads and provide as much advice as we can.

Do you know anyone else who would be interested in moderating the Ph.D forum? It would be great to have a broad discussion. 

We plan to start a GMAT Club blog in the next few weeks. We would like to invite our moderators to share interesting articles, or write your opinions on an issue or simply write about interesting stuff. I will let you know when the blog is up.

Regards
Praet

kv244 · Answer

anupag - regarding your XLS sheet. i have visited the sites of many of the schools you have there and almost never found detailed GMAT data. especially ranges are hard to come across, usually they mention something like 'GMAT tends to be in the upper 600's' or similar. i was just curious how did you manage to get that kind of data!

also, the data i found was usually under each department (MIS in my case). 

finally, an important factor not discussed much here is matching research interests with faculty; if they don't have anyone doing what you want to be doing, you won't get in.

Hjort · Answer

Note that individual phd concentrations often have a tiny number of matriculated students per annum. Further, there are few data regarding the attributes of admitted as opposed to enrolled students. Thus, the summary stats (especially 10-90 range) of enrolled students for each concentration might not be all that meaningful or even possible to obtain. For instance, many concentrations at major schools enroll five or fewer students each year. 

NYU

"The median GMAT score for the Fall 2004 entering class is 728. GMAT scores are mentioned because they are an easy number to summarize. As stated earlier, test scores are only one of the elements we consider. We accept the students who we feel have the aptitude, background and motivation to produce first quality research in the future. 

We receive over 300 applications in Finance and enroll about 7 students per year. In each of the other disciplines we receive 50 to 150 applications and enroll 2 to 4 students per year. The business schools with the top doctoral programs regularly exchange admission statistics. Stern’s admission data are typical of the top five programs in the country."

shinny · Answer

Anurag your list is flawed. The average GMAT for Simon School is 722 and not 637. They have mentioned this clearly on their website. The average GMAT even for Boston College is 720. 

Further, for finance the competition is far tougher.

Shinny

Sameer · Answer

That list is now outdated. Don't use the data for this year apps. Use the sheet format to guide your decisions but update the data for schools you want to apply to. I applied to Simon and clearly remember they didn't have this data on website last year. Anyway 722 is quite ok for Simon, international applicants may not be getting in below 730 or so. Bottomline remains - for international applicants, 700+ is minimum standard. (but a 780 does not guarantee admission !)

The main purpose of such a sheet is to narrow down where you want to apply to. For me, I was not knowing much about univs, and collating data in such a sheet - finally it had columns for emails sent and replies received and comments and so on - (and also passwords etc for various university app sites

). So making a sheet for yourself is what is valuable.

What happens slowly is that you realize that you prefer not the universities but the goal - of doing PhD in a particular area - so you would start giving those reasons more "points" in your worksheet as you uncover more data. That then begins to guide your app strategy. Most applicants I know use such a method to shortlist univs. This is a personal decision.

Competition for Finance is tougher ? Maybe. :cry:

). So making a sheet for yourself is what is valuable. What happens slowly is that you realize that you prefer not the universities but the goal - of doing PhD in a particular area - so you would start giving those reasons more "points" in your worksheet as you uncover more data. That then begins to guide your app strategy. Most applicants I know use such a method to shortlist univs. This is a personal decision. Competition for Finance is tougher ? Maybe. :cry:

nately · Answer

So I have a question for you guys, that's sort of on topic for this thread. How do GMAT scores generally compare with GRE scores? Do people typically get about 1/2 their GRE score on the GMAT? Or a little less?

Just asking because I've already taken the GRE and don't want to take the GMAT, but it would be nice for seeing how I stack up using a spreadsheet like this one.

hdp323 · Answer

My general rule of thumb from visiting various web sites is that Ph.D. programs have following average GMAT scores. Please be aware that these are very approximate figures and depends on many other circumstances:

1) Top 10 schools: 730-750
2) Schools ranked 10-30: 710-730
3) Schools ranked 30-70: 680-710
4) Other Ph.D. programs: 640-700

Of course, rankings are also very subjective, but it just gives you a general idea.

shinny · Answer

Well said!! 700 is needed for a serious review of your application, while a magical score does not necessarily get you through.

With media rankings of MBAs, schools have heavily cut down their budget for PhD. On some websites I read that the deans are now asking "Why should I train my future competitor for free?" So, now each school admit only 11-12 applicants (acceptance rate 5%), the bare minimum necessary for research and teaching assistantship.

While GMAT is necessary, I think the most important thing is your SOP!!

cpblake · Answer

I spoke the Director of the Business PhD program at a top school recently. He indicated to me that by far, the recommendation is the most important when two applicants are fairly equal in GPA/GMAT. He further stated that the recommendation should be from a professor who can attest to your research ability not just your intelligence. He indicated that only professors can truly establish someone's aptitude for research. This explains why professional references are not viewed as highly. Since a CEO cannot ascertain your research ability, it's not as beneficial. So, the moral of the story is to have a professor mention research, research, research in your letters of recommendation.

Just thought I'd share this, I found it insightful. I plan to try to take some graduate business research courses, so that I can get in with some good research faculty before I apply to programs in 2006.

cabro57 · Answer

This goes to nately, though it's obviously been a long time. From my own experience, you can't really compare GMAT verbal vs. GRE verbal, and as English isn't my 1st language, I found GMAT questions easier because they relied more heavily on logic, and there weren't any of those vocabulary questions that (IMHO) just take up space on the GRE. As for GMAT quant vs. GRE quant, GMAT questions (especially the harder ones) are harder than GRE questions. If I recall from the score tables posted on the official GRE site, a _majority_ of PhD finance/accounting applicants score 800 on the GRE quant exam, which isn't true of GMAT scores where the top part of the scale is reached by very few applicants. My guess is that an 800 GRE quant score is anywhere between 80th-99th percentile on the GMAT.

My feeling is that the GRE general test is useless for admission in quant-oriented fields of business since the test is not hard enough to discriminate between applicants with good, but varying math abilities. I know that GRE subject tests exist but can't remember seeing a website that, for example, asked for the Math subject test for application to a Ph.D. in OR or Finance. Can anyone comment on that?

hdp323 · Answer

None of the Business Ph.D. programs I've seen requires GRE subject, and I've went through the web site of pretty much every Ph.D. program in the US. While advanced math is certainly required for Ph.D. in most business fields, the subject tests are geared toward math majors with topics like analysis, topology, adbtract algebra, etc. Some of these topics are very relevant while others are pretty useless for Business Ph.D. coursework.

I completely agree that GRE General - Quant section doesn't discriminate between candidates with good quant skills and great quant skills. Everyone just gets 790 or 800, so not having (near) perfect score would be a big disadvantage.

I'm also not very fond of GRE General - Verbal. I'm not sure what it meassures except the tenacity of people memorizing endless list of words. While I agree that some minimum vocabulary is needed for Ph.D. level students, the way test is being studied nowadays, it destroys the whole purpose. I've seen many students who study the GRE for the sake of getting a high score for admissions purpose, while time could be spent more wisely. But at the end of the day, schools do care for these test scores, so we can't blame those students either.

deeps · Answer

Hello everyone,
 Most sites list UC Berkeley's Haas as a top business school.However, I cannot find info on where they have a PHD program for Operations Management/Decision Sciences area. Hass does not seem to have that. Anyone applied to Berkeley for the above discipline?

Or any pointers on where to look in the Berkeley.edu site?

Deeps

cabro57 · Answer

There's the link to the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC-Berkeley. It's part of the College of Engineering, not Haas, but their Ph.D. program looks pretty much the same at what they have in OR programs at b-schools (I could be wrong):

https://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/

deeps · Answer

cabro57, thanks for the info. Yes, that seems to be the one. However, I am not sure whether that PHD is the same as that of the Hass B-School. Also, I dont see the info whether they need GRE or GMAT for this PHD.

Anyone out there can throw some light on these? It seems more of an industrial engg degree rather than a B-School degree.

I am now out of the usa, so cannot even call them to find out.
Anyone can help ?
Deeps

Sameer · Answer

Hi

goto this page for admissions

https://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/Admissions ... ission.htm

and some IEOR student websites are here

https://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/People/Students/index.htm

Berkeley's degree is that of University - and not of the Hass School of Business, but the program's graduates join B schools just like ops graduates of other B-schools. It is a very highly regarded college, admissions are tougher and your undergrad GPA is a major factor.

oceandeep85 · Answer

Hi everybody

I am a masters student at a top-tier European uni and I am planning to app for PhD at US top-10 Business schools.

I have been scored 710 in GMAT in spite of not investing more than 3 days to prep. Do you think it would be wise if I prepare harder and retake the GMAT? I was scored 93% in Quan, and I had some 15 min of extra time once I finished the Quan questions. So I assume I could have done better by a better timing strategy.

Do you recommend me retaking the GMAT?

Many thanks for your help

Arj

Best GMAT Score for Top 25 PhD

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards