From Dr. Shel (Shelly Watts), https://www.mbaadmit.com, email: info@mbaadmit.com
Interested in learning if we think you can be successful as an EMBA applicant?
Feel free to sign up for a FREE Profile Evaluation directly from Dr. Shel Watts, a Harvard and Oxford graduate with Harvard admissions experience and over 25 years of work with MBA applicants: fill out the form on our homepage at https://www.mbaadmit.com
Ask about our current specials – Comprehensive packages beginning at $1395 (Compare with our competitors who charge $4,400!); Basic editing of one application for $925. Valid through April 10, 2016. Opt to work directly with Dr. Shel on your MBA applications! EMBA Average GMAT Scores: 2016 ReportWhat is expected of the GMAT score for the successful EMBA applicant? Executive MBA programs at top business schools such as Wharton, Kellogg, Columbia, NYU, Booth, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Duke and MIT have become much more in-demand in recent years. The increased number of applicants means that the odds of success in admissions at some of the top programs have been getting harder. Because of the keen competition to these programs, candidates often approach us at
MBA Admit.com with a great deal of concern if they have received a GMAT score that is lower than they had been aiming. Is a 620 GMAT score good enough? What about 640? Or 660?
If you perform an Internet search, you will find that only a few schools readily report their GMAT average or median score for matriculating EMBA students on their website. Wharton boasts a 700 median GMAT score among its successful applicants. Reputable sources indicate that Columbia Business School has a GMAT range from 600-740. Other reputable sources indicate UCLA has a 650 GMAT average.
This stands in contrast to the GMAT averages for top full-time programs in the United States. According to U.S. News and World Report, based on 2016 compilation of the 2015 statistics, these were the average GMAT scores for the top full-time U.S. MBA programs:
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), Philadelphia, PA: 732
University of Chicago (Booth), Chicago, IL: 726
Northwestern University (Kellogg), Evanston, IL: 724
New York University (Stern), New York, NY: 720
MIT (Sloan), Cambridge, MA: 716
Columbia University, New York, NY: 715
University of California—Berkeley (Haas), Berkeley, CA: 715
University of California—Los Angeles (Anderson), Los Angeles, CA: 713
University of VA (Darden), Charlottesville, VA: 706
Duke University (Fuqua), Durham, NC: 696
Importantly, the 2015 average GMAT scores increased at many of these schools! Has this had an impact on the expectations of admissions committees with regard to the GMAT scores of EMBA applicants? From what we at
MBA Admit.com have seen through our many EMBA candidates, no, the admissions committees have not been requiring that EMBA candidates also present higher GMAT scores.
Does this mean that you can gain admission to EMBA programs with a lower GMAT score than would be possible for the full-time program counterpart? In most cases, the answer is yes, your GMAT score can be lower.
Does a GMAT score below a certain number put your EMBA application at risk? Yes, at some top EMBA programs, a score that is too low can be problematic, particularly if you do not have a “quant” background – meaning a college education or job that involves/involved a lot of work with numbers. If you present a GMAT score in the 500s, for example, your application will be hurt at many programs. If you present a GMAT score in the low 600s, whether you can work around that depends upon your profile (overrepresented vs. not), nature of your professional work, level of demonstrated excellence in your career, quality of your recommendations and other metrics that can attest to your competency with numbers.
Happily for most EMBA candidates, the GMAT score is not the only factor that will contribute to the decision about your EMBA admission. Top EMBA programs understand that most applicants have very busy and demanding professional lives, in addition to family lives. They want to attract top candidates, so they will be slow to reject a student on the basis of the GMAT alone unless the score is glaringly low.
Bear in mind also, that because top EMBA programs recognize it is hard for a busy applicant to set aside time to prepare for the GMAT, many top EMBA programs do not require the GMAT score at all – Kellogg, Cornell and NYU among them. Other EMBA programs offer opportunities for you to get the GMAT requirement waived – Duke and UCLA among them. But for those programs that do require the GMAT score, you can often work around a relatively low GMAT score as long as you present outstanding essays and recommendations and point out both other achievements and relevant metrics of success.
At
MBA Admit.com, we have worked successfully with candidates who had GMAT scores as low as 600 and were “over-represented” (male engineers, for instance), and such candidates were still able to gain EMBA admission to top schools like Wharton and Columbia because their applications, including the recommendations, were truly outstanding. So, you should not assume that having a less-than-ideal GMAT score will necessarily close the admissions door.
Would you like assistance with your EMBA application, to ensure you put forward an outstanding application? Send an email to info@mbaadmit.com.
We welcome you to sign up for our FREE informative Newsletter, which provides useful tips, insider information and guidance for applying to top MBA programs. Sign up on the right hand side of our homepage at https://www.mbaadmit.com. Best wishes,
Dr. Shel (Shelly Watts)
President, MBA Admit.comhttps://www.mbaadmit.comEmail:
info@mbaadmit.com