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CATEGORY - GMAT NEWS

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Manhattan GMAT Offers Accelerated Test-Prep Boot Camp This December

For prospective applicants looking to take the GMAT in time to meet second round business school application deadlines, Manhattan GMAT has recently announced an accelerated test-prep course designed to prepare students for the exam in just four weeks.

The December 2008 Boot Camp features two weeks of intensive in-person prep led by two instructors in Manhattan GMAT’s New York Center, followed by two weeks of additional live online office hours with instructors and a 30-minute personal game-planning session.

During the in-person portion, which begins on December 1st, students are expected to devote the vast majority of their time exclusively to GMAT prep. In the course of those two weeks, students will attend 10 class sessions, each lasting three and a half hours, and take two practice exams. Office hours in which students can meet individually with instructors also will be available during this time, and students will have a significant amount of homework to complete outside of class.

In the second portion of the Boot Camp, weeks three and four, students can return to their job or other commitments, but they should still plan to devote substantial time each day to continuing test prep. During this time, students will take a third practice exam and have the opportunity to participate in live online office hours with Manhattan GMAT instructors. They also will take part in a 30-minute personal game-planning session (also held online).

All in all, the $2,950 course tuition includes 43 hours of intensive in-class work, 14 online office hours, the 30-minute personal game-planning session, three simulated practice exams in the Manhattan GMAT New York Center, and a complete set of Manhattan GMAT test preparation materials.

For a detailed schedule or to register, click here.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Scoretop Saga Conclusion: With 84 Students’ Scores Cancelled, Some Fates Still Uncertain

As reported last week in BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) has cancelled the scores of several students shown to be involved in the Scoretop.com scandal that came to light earlier this year.

According to various reports, the ultimate fate of these students will depend on the level of participation they had with the Scoretop website, the schools to which they applied and their current student status. (Some students involved, in fact, have already graduated from business school.)

According to GMAC spokesperson Judy Phair, the admissions council has decided to cancel the scores of only those students “against whom we felt we have airtight cases.” In total, 84 students’ scores were cancelled.

Of those, 12 students were shown to have actually posted questions themselves on the Scoretop site. Those students will be barred from retaking the GMAT exam for at least three years. The other 72 students posted messages on Scoretop indicating that they had seen certain questions on their GMAT exam. Their scores cancelled, these students will be permitted to retake the exam again immediately.

In all 84 cases, the admissions council notified schools that students had improperly prepared for the exam, although what individual schools will do with that information remains to be seen.

According to the Journal, two of the students who acknowledged that they had seen certain test questions on the Scoretop site – but who had not posted actual questions themselves – are current students at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Chicago is considering action against the students, but “we haven’t decided anything,” Rose Martinelli, director of admissions, told the Journal.

Meanwhile at Stanford, 11 students’ scores were cancelled, according to the Journal report. Of those, 10 were denied admission, but one had already graduated, Admissions Director Derrick Bolton said in a statement.

Stanford plans to meet with the student who has graduated “to discuss this situation,” Bolton said. For students whose scores were cancelled and who plan to reapply, they will need – “at minimum” – to supply an explanation, Bolton continued, encouraging that they “might learn from the experience by reflecting on their actions and taking ownership for their errors, then sharing those explanations and insights with us.”

Other top business schools – including Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale – report that they had no students with tainted scores actually enroll. And a spokesman for the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania said in an email to the Journal that officials still “analyzing the situation are not yet prepared to discuss next steps.”

Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, for its part, will hold an “ethics fireside chat” this month on campus to discuss the Scoretop cheating scandal.

GMAC, meanwhile, has posted an extensive FAQ on the subject of score cancellations. It also announced that it plans to implement palm-vein scanning technology going forward to help reduce other types of fraud among test-takers, including “proxy” test taking, in which applicants hire high-scoring imposters to take the exam for them.

We’d love to hear what you think of the conclusion to the Scoretop scandal. For anyone who missed it last week, click here to participate in Clear Admit’s online poll about whether the punishment fits the crime.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Economic Uncertainty, Increased International Student Interest Keeps MBA Application Volume Soaring

Business schools are experiencing the second-largest surge in application volume since 2002, according to the most recent research out of the Granduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which administers the GMAT exam.

GMAC’s 2008 Application Trends Survey reveals that 77 percent of business schools surveyed reported an increase in application volume this year, up from 64 percent in 2007. The jump represents the largest increase in five years.

The current economy only serves to make the value proposition of an MBA even stronger, according to GMAC President and CEO Dave Wilson. “Going to business school is one of the best ways to improve your marketability and expand your options anytime – but especially in this challenging economic climate,” he told the Financial Times.

According to a report in BusinessWeek citing the GMAC survey, the greatest surge has been among mid-tier business schools, such as Penn State’s Smeal College of Business and Babson College’s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business, which have seen an increase of between 35 and 40 percent in applications received this year over last.

But the admissions offices at top-tier schools, too, have been flooded. MIT’s Sloan School of Management saw a 28 percent increase in application volume in 2008, and NYU’s Stern School of Business was up 20 percent, receiving its second-highest number of applications on record, according to BusinessWeek. 

Strong interest from international students – for whom a U.S. business school education presents even greater value thanks to the faltering dollar – also has helped fuel the application surge, GMAC reports. Last year, 54 percent of students applying to full-time MBA programs were students from outside the school’s home country.

Citing further projected economic changes and GMAT test-taking patterns, the survey results indicate that the coming year may hold even greater application volume before a slowdown begins.

So far, application volume to full-time MBA programs has been rising at the fastest clip, but GMAC’s Wilson predicts that part-time and executive MBA programs will be the next to see a significant jump. “As the slowdown in the economy continues, we’re going to see a shift to the part-time prrams because people aren’t going to want to leave work if they have a good job,” he told BusinessWeek.

GMAC has not yet released the full 2008 Application Trend Survey results to the public. To view the 2007 results, which help provide some context and a holistic view of major survey results, click here.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Wharton School to Host November Net Impact Conference

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania will host the 2008 Net Impact North American Conference this November, which is expected to draw close to 2,000 graduate business students, professionals, academics and corporate responsibility leaders together to address issues of sustainability in business.

The conference, entitled “The Sustainability Advantage: Creating Social and Environmental Value,” will feature speakers from both the corporate and nonprofit worlds sharing their approaches to sustainability and underlining the power of partnerships in championing corporate responsibility.

Topping the roster of scheduled speakers are Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO John Brock, World Wildlife Fund President and CEO Carter Roberts and Wal-mart Senior Vice President of Sustainability Matt Kistler.

Net Impact is a global network of students and leaders using business to improve the world, and the event at Wharton this fall marks its 16th annual North American conference.

In addition to featured speakers, the two-day conference also will provide participants with an opportunity to participate in panel discussions on a range of topics, including energy and environment, international and community development, and social impact finance. Networking events, a Career Expo and in-depth workshops for students wishing to start their own Net Impact chapters on campus will round out the conference offerings.

“The speakers and sessions planned for this year’s agenda promise to make this conference our largest to date and we look forward to engaging participants around these important issues of business sustainability,” Net Impact Executive Director Liz Maw said in a statement.

Wharton, for its part, is pleased to have been selected as this year’s conference host. “There is a strong interest among our faculty and students in studying and engaging with questions related to the social impact and responsibilities of business,” said Anjani Jain, Wharton vice dean, in a statement. “The conference is a wonderful opportunity for us to assemble prominent thinkers in this field all at one time.”

Wharton’s Net Impact chapter – Wharton Social Impact – was established in 1993 and is part of the larger Wharton Alliance for Social Responsibility. Its activities and initiatives on campus include providing career resources to students interested in positions in social impact fields, hosting a range of networking events on and off campus, and evaluating a developing the Wharton curriculum to ensure that it includes courses and materials that address socially responsible business and public interest issues.

This year marks the first time Wharton has hosted the annual Net Impact Conference.

For a comprehensive overview of the 2008 Net Impact North America Conference, click here. To learn more about Wharton Social Impact, click here.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

MBA Application Volume Continues to Rise

Reports from a range of sources indicate that MBA application volume continues to climb, outpacing previous seasons both in the United States and around the globe.

According to Wharton’s MBA Admissions Blog, the Philadelphia school received more than 7,000 applications this year. Because of the unusually high volume, “we were forced to deny many fine applicants who would do well at Wharton and who would contribute to the community,” the Admissions Committee wrote.

In fact, because so many candidates were turned away this year, Wharton hosted a series of online chats this summer about the reapplication process, the last of which took place earlier this week. The chats were part of an effort to provide tips to applicants hoping to try again, since Wharton is unable to provide individualized feedback to the applicants it doesn’t accept.

Boston-area schools, too, report a significant uptick in applications this year. According to an article in the Boston Herald, Harvard Business School (HBS) is reporting that applications for this fall’s incoming class surged by almost 16 percent, to 8,600.

Deidre Leopold, director of MBA admissions at HBS, attributes the increase to the current economic downturn. Two years ago, when the economy was not as bad, HBS saw an applicant volume increase of 10 percent, she told the Herald. And at a recruitment conference in New York in the spring, she reports that more than half those in the “full to capacity” audience cited uncertainties in their economic lives as part of what was making them consider an MBA.

According to the Herald report, other Boston-area schools are also reporting double-digit increases over last year, with MIT’s Sloan School of Management showing the largest jump: 28 percent.

Test-taking volume stats from the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which administers the GMAT exam, tell much the same story. Year-to-date figures through July 31, 2008, reveal a steady increase both in the number of people registering for and taking the exam.

Worldwide, test registration volume rose to 167,692, an 11.69 percent increase over the number of registrations recorded during the same period in 2007 and the largest volume on record for any years studied. Testing volume, meanwhile, rose to 140,638 worldwide, an 11.98 percent increase over last year and also the largest recorded volume for any years previously studied.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

GMAC Official Fields Questions From Concerned Students About Scoretop Scandal

In a recent online chat with BusinessWeek reporter Francesca Di Meglio and reader participants, a senior official from the Graduate Management Admission Council fielded questions about the ongoing Scoretop.com scandal, in which GMAC is now determining how to mete out punishment to MBA aspirants who used Scoretop to access live GMAT questions.

While they may provide a measure of reassurance to some students, GMAC Senior Vice President Peg Jöbst’s responses made clear that GMAC fully intends to proceed with the cancellation of scores for students found to have posted GMAT questions they saw on their GMAT exam on the Scoretop site or to have confirmed that they saw questions on Scoretop that then appeared on their GMAT exam.

Jöbst did not provide specific details about when cancellations will occur. “We are working as quickly as possible in our investigation,” she said. “The investigation must be thorough, as we do not take lightly the matter of canceling scores.” Students whose scores are cancelled will receive notification from GMAC directly, which also will notify schools that their scores have been cancelled. So far, no scores have been cancelled, Jöbst said.

Asked whether students who are found to fit into GMAC’s criteria for unethical use of the Scoretop site and whose scores are cancelled would have an opportunity to retake the GMAT, Jöbst responded: “Not likely.” 

Once GMAC has completed its investigation and taken action against those students deemed to have violated GMAC policy, GMAC will post a notification on mba.com that its investigation is complete, Jöbst said. She added that she considered it “extremely unlikely” that GMAC would alter its criteria for cancellation or reopen the cases of students whose scores are not cancelled at a later date. Students who receive notification that their scores will be canceled will have an opportunity to appeal GMAC’s decision, she continued.

According to Jöbst’s answers to questions posed by concerned GMAC test takers during the chat, students who used a Scoretop VIP subscription but only browsed – without giving or obtaining live questions – do not fall within GMAC’s criteria for score cancellation. Jöbst encouraged students who are convinced that they do not fall under these criteria to proceed with their plans, be they to retake the GMAT exam or to prepare for enrollment in business school.

Some students expressed frustration that they hadn’t known that subscribing to Scoretop was in violation of GMAC’s policies and that GMAC should have done more to warn well-intentioned students which test preparation services to avoid.

Jöbst responded that GMAC does not endorse any specific Web sites or study materials other than those it operates directly, such as GMATPrep software, which is available free of charge through the mba.com site.

But she offered the following guidelines to help students avoid violating GMAC’s policies and procedures: 
• Do not purchase, request, or share materials that claim to be “real” or “live” GMAT questions in any form.
• Be wary if you see discussion threads in which test content is shared and real or “live” questions are confirmed as accessible via the site or any participant(s) of the site (online or offline).
• Do not share any test content with anyone else after you have taken the test.

So there you have it. We’ll continue to keep you updated here on the Clear Admit site with any new developments in the Scoretop case.

Friday, July 25, 2008

To Reduce Fraud, Students Taking GMAT Will Have to Submit to Palm Scan

According to reports this week in the Wall Street Journal and the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which owns the GMAT exam, plans to begin using a new biometric technology to scan the palms of students entering its testing facilities in an effort to reduce fraud.

The palm scanning technology, which is considered by GMAC to be superior to the digital fingerprint scanning it began using in 2006 to validate test takers identities, has been widely used in Japan by users of automated teller machines, according to the Journal report.

GMAC will begin palm scanning at testing centers in Korea and India next month, moving to centers in the United States as early as this fall and rolling out worldwide by next May, the Journal continued.

The palms scans are designed to deter “proxy” test taking, in which prospective applicants hire high-scoring imposters to take the test in their place. Now, test takers will be required to hold their hand over a scanner that will take an infrared picture of the blood coursing through their hand. The resulting “palm vein” pattern, unique to every individual, will then be stored by the scanner and can be compared against a database of all test takers.

The palm-scanning devices, produced by Fujitsu, cost less than $1,000, according to the Journal report. But with training, installation and other costs, London’s Pearson LLC, which administers the test for GMAC, expects to spend millions rolling out the new technology to more than 450 testing centers worldwide. The exam’s $250 cost to test takers is not expected to increase, though, GMAC told the Journal.

Palm-veining scanning will not protect against other types of cheating, GMAC officials acknowledge, such as the recent Scoretop scandal in which students were able to purchase access to actual GMAT questions in advance of taking the exam.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

GMAT Scandal: The Saga Continues

We just wanted to provide our readers with a quick update on developments in the blogosphere since our post yesterday about the GMAT/Scoretop.com saga.

With the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) now in possession of the hard drive belonging to Scoretop’s founder, Lei Shi, test-takers revealed to have paid a subscription for access to actual GMAT test questions through Scoretop stand to have their test scores canceled and to be barred from taking the GMAT exam again.

Without a score to submit for the admissions exam favored by many of the top business schools in the world, the application process for these prospective applicants promises to be anything but easy. Scoretop customers who have yet to send scores to schools will have nothing to send. And for those whose scores have already been sent, GMAC says that it intends to notify schools of the cancellations.

But what about students who are already enrolled? Or who have already obtained their MBAs? As a BusinessWeek.com story on Monday pointed out, Scoretop has been operating since 2003. According to several schools contacted for comment, the fate of current or prospective students whose scores are canceled is still unknown. “It’s impossible to say at this point what that means,” Ed Anderson, Duke’s associate director of admissions, told BW.

According to Joe Fox, director of MBA programs at Washington University’s Olin Business School, a lot will have to do with how much information GMAC can provide about individual students – particularly about how frequently they used the Scoretop site. 

“We could do anything we wanted—from a slap on the wrist to expulsion from the program—and we’d be well within our rights,” Fox told BW. As a cautionary tale, Fox reminded readers that when a Chinese national was caught taking the GMAT for dozens of prospective students several years ago, one Olin student who had the test taken on his behalf was dismissed before he could complete his degree.

Which brings us to the point made by MBA blogger TinyDancer in a recent post. “It seems like every year there is a scandal in the MBA world,” the Wharton student writes. She goes on to remind us of a few from recent years, including the Harvard application decision “hacking” scandal, where students who followed the advice of a BW poster were able to modify the Apply Yourself website to see their decisions early, and last year’s Duke cheating scandal. 

Of course, we’ve covered each of these scandals over the years right here on the Clear Admit blog. So, while we can’t claim to be able to predict the exact flavor of next admission season’s scandal, we do promise to keep you informed.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

GMAT Corner Cutters Could Pay Dearly, According to Recent Court Ruling

The Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) announced Friday that is has been awarded $2.3 million in damages in a copyright-infringement lawsuit against the operator of a website that posted real questions and unauthorized study materials to help prospective business school applicants pass the GMAT business school entrance exam.

Lei Shi operated www.scoretop.com, which for a $30 subscription provided users with actual GMAT questions. Shi, who was living in the United States when the suit was filed by GMAC, has returned as a fugitive to his native China, where he is the focus of a criminal investigation by the F.B.I.

In a seizure of his assets as part of the court ruling, GMAC has obtained the hard drive to Shi’s computer, which contained “substantial information about the individuals who participated in Scoretop’s unlawful activities either as employees or agents of Shi or as ‘members’ of the Scoretop site,” according to a release issued by GMAC.

GMAC has begun the process of reviewing materials on Shi’s hard drive to assess whether individuals have violated its testing policies through participation in Scoretop. The test scores of any that are deemed to be in violation will be canceled, and business schools will be notified of those cancelations.

In his own blog this week, Dean Robert Bruner of the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business praised the court ruling and warned GMAT corner-cutters of the consequences they could face at his and other institutions.

“Darden and its peer schools will brook absolutely no cheating,” Bruner wrote. “The integrity of the GMAT is vital to the discovery and admission of real talent,” he continued.

Ironically, accessing the content available from sites such as Scoretop does not guarantee a higher score on the GMAT, according to Larry Rudner, GMAC vice president for research and development.

“Even if a site is illegally able to obtain some ‘real’ questions, it is extremely unlikely that a test taker will see the same questions on the live exam,” Ruder explains. A computer-adaptive test, the GMAT sifts through a bank of thousands of questions in the course of administering each individual exam.

Be that as it may, GMAC is “committed to reporting to schools any unethical behavior that we uncover regarding our testing policy and lack of compliance with that policy by candidates for admission who are sending their scores to schools,” GMAC President Dave Wilson said in a statement. “This case is just one example of our continued pursuit of those who fail to respect our intellectual property rights and our testing policies,” Wilson continued.

Darden’s Dean Bruner echoed this sentiment on his blog. “It is not unreasonable to assume that if you cheat, GMAC will discover it and come after you,” he wrote. “Applicants are well-advised to write an honest test. Cutting corners doesn’t pay.”

Monday, April 28, 2008

GMAT Registration Volume Continues to Climb

The latest stats from the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns the GMAT exam, are in – and registration volume continued to climb through March, though at a slightly slower clip. Worldwide, registration volume through March 31, 2008, was 71,776, up 11.09 percent from the same period last year, but down just a bit from the year-over-year growth reported at the end of February (11.82 percent).

As was the case in February, the growth in GMAT registration volume was most noticeable outside the United States, where it increased 22.20 percent year over year. Within the United States, GMAT registrations during the first three months of calendar year 2008 also increased, though at the more measured pace of 5.25 percent.

Though the rate of registration volume increase dropped just a bit both within and outside the United States in the month of March, current year-to-date registration across geographic categories was still greater than comparable figures for any year previously studied. 

The number of GMAT exams taken likewise grew both within the United States and internationally. (Note: GMAT tracks the number of tests, not the number of test takers. In a given year, more than a fifth of GMAT exams are taken by people who have tested more than once that year. Test takers can take the GMAT exam up to five times in a 12-month period.)

Like registration volume, the number of GMAT tests taken worldwide through March 31, 2008, also rose. The number of tests taken in the first three months of the year was 59,612, an 11.45 percent increase over the same period in 2007. Within the United States, tests taken through the end of March increased 7.58 percent over 2007. Internationally, the number of GMAT tests taken grew by 18.78 percent in that time.

To learn more about recent GMAT research and trends, visit the GMAC website.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Church Leaders, School Principals, Football Players: B-School Welcomes All

Seems it’s not just economics majors heading toward MBA programs these days. In recent posts we’ve talked about the new Harvard 2+2 program, designed by HBS to draw talented college students who might otherwise veer toward law or public policy. On the other end of the spectrum, we’re also spotting the emergence of new executive MBA programs targeting professionals in fields not traditionally associated with business – fields as diverse as professional football, religion and education.

The NFL’s MBA
Forbes.com last month ran an article about football players who are studying business while not on the playing field. Partnering with top business schools, the National Football League started the NFL Business Management and Entrepreneurial Program, designed to help professional football players develop skills that will help ensure financial stability once their playing days are behind them.

Launched three years ago, the NFL program has grown from 66 players at two of the top business schools in the U.S. to 118 players at four. Participating schools offer executive education in their respective areas of expertise.

Harvard’s course offerings include entrepreneurial opportunities and business management; Kellogg, developing and selling a brand and evaluating franchise opportunities; Stanford, evaluating business opportunities in the sports industry; and Wharton, financial analysis, real-estate development, negotiations.

According to Forbes.com, the players undergo a rigorous application process that involves demonstrating their level of education, professional business experience, interest in starting, owning or managing a business and leadership and community involvement.

“We wanted to make sure players selected themselves well and were serious about it,” Chris Henry, director of NFL player development and founder of the program, told Forbes.com. “They have to be prepared to compete with others who have been out in the working world,” he added.

Preaching Management to Religious Leaders
The Duke University Divinity School, in partnership with the Fuqua School of Business, has launched a new program designed to help Christian leaders apply wise business practices to their theological work to meet real-world challenges, according to a recent report in the Graduate Management Admissions Council’s (GMAC) Deans Digest.

A generous $14 million grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. will help establish the program, which will provide teaching, coaching and other resources for religious leaders. Participants in the program will range from bishops and executive directors of denominations to senior leaders of seminaries and other organizations that serve congregations.

“This new project is an exciting and innovative step for Duke Divinity School and Duke University,” Duke University President Richard Brodhead said in a statement announcing the initiative. “It builds on distinctive strengths at Duke and exemplifies the university’s special interest in not only developing new knowledge but also applying that knowledge broadly in the service of society,” he continued.

The initiative will feature a range of programs that focus on leading and managing Christian institutions; some will be offered on an open-application basis and others will be customized for specific groups.

Rice MBA Program for Principals
In partnership with educational organizations Teach for America and Houston A+ Challenge, the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University recently launched the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Programs, designed to develop leadership and business skills among principals in K-12 schools, GMAC’s Dean Digest reports.

The Rice Educational Entrepreneurship Programs are designed to attract top educational talent from throughout the U.S. to help strengthen Houston-area public schools, according to a Business Wire release. 

“The K-12 school system at large in the Houston community calls for transformational thought leadership in its management ranks that can greatly improve the quality of education for the community for the long term,” William Glick, dean of Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Management, told Business Wire.

The initiative, funded by a $7.2 million grant from the Houston Endowment, includes three new academic tracts designed to develop leadership and business skills among principals in K-12 schools. Among the new programs is a graduate management degree, the Rice MBA for Professionals for Education Entrepreneurs.

The Big Picture
Though specific in their focus and catering to narrowly defined audiences, the emergence of these new management education programs underlines the ways in which a business school education is proving more and more useful across professional fields. Is it any wonder that year-to-date GMAT registration volume – which surpassed 47,000 at the end of February – is higher than comparable figures for any other year studied?

Friday, March 14, 2008

Double-Digit Growth in GMAT Testing Volume Continues

The Graduate Management Admissions Council, which owns the GMAT exam, has released its February 2008 test registration and volume figures, and they reflect continued growth both in the United States and worldwide, with international growth especially high.

Worldwide, the number of people who registered to take the GMAT exam between the first of the year and February 29, 2008, was 47,592, an 11.82 percent increase over the number of registrations recorded during the same period in 2007.

Registration volume growth was most pronounced outside the United States, where it grew 24.22 percent, jumping from 14,316 registrants in the first two months of 2007 to 17,783 in the same period this year. Growth within the U.S. was more measured, but still steady at 5.53 percent – with year-to-date U.S. registrants totaling 29,809.

Tests Taken Rise, Too
The number of GMAT exams taken likewise grew both within the U.S. and internationally. (Note: GMAT tracks the number of tests, not the number of test takers. In a given year, more than a fifth of GMAT exams are taken by people who have tested more than once that year. Test takers can take the GMAT exam up to five times in a 12-month period.)

The number of GMAT tests taken worldwide through February 29, 2008, was 38,183, a 12.33 percent increase over the same period in 2007. Within the U.S., the number of tests taken during the first two months of the calendar year increased 7.08 percent over 2007. Internationally, the number of GMAT tests taken grew by 21.92 percent in that time.

In all categories – test registration and test volume within the U.S., internationally and worldwide – the rate of growth for the first two months of 2008 exceeded all comparable figures for all other years studied.

As GMAT registration and test taking volume continues to climb, doing your very best on the exam grows ever more important. Don’t miss our recent series of GMAT test taking tips, provided courtesy of our partners at ManhattanGMAT. Best of luck!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Test-Taking Tips from the Experts at ManhattanGMAT (Part 3)

Today we continue in our series of test-taking tips provided to us by the experts at ManhattanGMAT. Previous posts have stressed, first, the importance of the narrowing your focus to just the problem you’re working in a given moment and second, knowing when a problem has you beat and wisely choosing to move on. Today’s tip: Scratch paper is your friend.

Seem simplistic? Maybe so. But keeping things simple is a big part of mastering this exam.

“Do your work on the scratch paper, not in your head,” says ManhattanGMAT’s Chris Ryan, director of instructor and product development. This rule applies no matter how smart you think you are or how easy the problem may seem.

To illustrate the point, Ryan provides the following scenario: You get pretty straightforward-seeming problem involving evens and odds. Your mind starts going. “Okay, let’s see, x odd plus y even is odd, then I multiply that odd by this other odd and I get odd. Or I could have x be even, so then even plus even is even, then I multiply that even by odd and I get…”

“Stop,” commands Ryan. “You are setting yourself up for a fall.”

It has to do with the limits of our working memory, Ryan continues. Even under the best circumstances, our working memory can only hold a few items at a time. And taking the GMAT does not constitute the best circumstances. “Studies have shown that under test pressure, the powers of your working memory shrink even further,” cautions Ryan.

Make it easier on yourself. They give you scratch paper for a reason.

“Write out your steps. Put the scenarios down on paper,” says Ryan. There’s no shame involved. It’s just smart test-taking procedure. “Make the process as easy on your brain as possible.”

But even in your scratch work, it pays to be organized, Ryan advises. “Be a friend to your future self – the self you’re going to be in thirty seconds, when you’re looking back over all these scribbles and trying to figure out what you just wrote down.”

Our thanks again to ManhattanGMAT for sharing their expertise about this exam. More tips to come! 

Friday, February 15, 2008

GMAT Volume Continues to Rise, Significant Increase of Non-U.S. Registrants

January statistics from the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns the GMAT exam, reflect a continuing rise in volume of both those registering for and taking the exam, with a marked increase among non-U.S. registrants.

In January 2008, 25,052 prospective test takers registered for the GMAT worldwide, representing an 11.43 percent increase over the number of registrations recorded during the same period in 2007. The number of U.S. registrations increased only slightly – 3.55 percent over the same period a year before – but a jump in non-U.S. registrations more than made up for it. Non-U.S. registrations ballooned by a whopping 27.58 percent during the same period. 

The number of test takers worldwide, meanwhile, increased by 13.7 percent over the same period in 2007. Within the U.S., volume increased 9.7 percent, compared to a 19.77 percent increase among non-U.S. test takers during the same period.

According to GMAC, research shows that approximately 20 percent of GMAT tests are taken for the purpose of submitting scores to nonbusiness graduate programs. Please note that test taking figures represent the number of tests taken, not the number of people taking tests. Approximately 21 percent of GMAT tests are taken by people who have taken the test more than once within a year, GMAC reports.

To learn more about GMAT volume trends, click here.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Test-Taking Tips from the Experts at ManhattanGMAT (Part 2)

In a blog post last week, we launched a series of GMAT test-taking tips, provided to us by our friends at ManhattanGMAT. Today we’ll continue with additional strategies designed to keep you focused – not flustered – as you navigate through the exam.

Last week’s tip talked about the importance of focusing on the question at hand, not on whether you got the last question wrong or on how well you’re doing overall. But what happens when the question at hand is baffling?

Know When to Fold ‘Em
The folks at ManhattanGMAT know this exam – it’s their business. Strategy number two, they tell us, is to know when to fold ‘em.

You’re deep into a problem you thought you knew how to solve, but somehow your answer doesn’t match any of those on the screen. Frantically rechecking your math, you’re trying to figure out what you’ve done wrong.

“Remember that to win this war, you have to lose some battles,” says Chris Ryan, ManhattanGMAT director of instructor and product development. “Don’t be a perfectionist,” Ryan continues. “Even people who get very high scores on the GMAT get a substantial proportion of questions wrong. Be ready to cut bait and walk away.”

But you’ve already devoted so much time to the problem, and you don’t want it all to have been for naught.

You still have options, advises Ryan. “Step back and see if you can take an intelligent guess. Eliminate some answers if you can. Sometimes, by giving up on Plan A, you can spot Plan B – which may not get you all the way to the right answer, but it might increase the odds.”

Okay. Say you abandon Plan A, pursue Plan B for attacking the problem and still don’t seem any closer to the answer. What then?

“Tell yourself the problem is experimental – and that’s why it’s so cryptic!” says Ryan. As many as a quarter of the questions on any given exam are, in fact, experimental and may not count toward your score.

It doesn’t pay to try to guess which ones are experimental, Ryan warns. “But if you find yourself at approximately the two-minute mark with no way forward on a particularly dastardly problem, tell yourself that the problem probably doesn’t even count.”

Take a deep breath, make your best guess and move on. “Save your time to invest in problems you really know how to do,” Ryan tells us.

Thanks again to ManhattanGMAT for sharing these valuable tips and strategies. We’ll have even more in upcoming posts…

Thursday, February 07, 2008

GMAT Test-Taking Tips (Part 1)

Despite reports that some schools are beginning, quietly, to accept GRE scores as well, the GMAT still reigns as the king of business school admissions exams. As important as crafting the perfect essay responses or wowing your interviewer with your interpersonal skills is scoring as high as you can on the test.

Yesterday, together with ManhattanGMAT, we hosted an MBA Info and Networking Mixer at our Philadelphia offices (thanks to all those who attended!).  Of course, we know not all of our readers can make it to Philadelphia, so in addition to offering a steady flow of MBA admissions advice in this blog we’re also launching a series of tips on how to sharpen your GMAT test-taking skills.

In several posts over the next couple of weeks, we will share ManhattanGMAT’s top five GMAT test-taking strategies. Our thanks to the experts there for passing along their knowledge and insight.

And now, straight from ManhattanGMAT’s Chris Ryan, director of instructor and product development, tip number one for GMAT test-takers:

“You’ve studied all the content, you’ve done hundreds of problems, you’ve taken practice test after practice test. And now, it’s GMAT game day. You’re following all the logistics tips: you got enough sleep last night, you’ve shown up early, you haven’t eaten anything funny, you plan to take the breaks while giving yourself enough time to check back in with the proctors. But what about actually taking the test? What do you have to remember while you’re in the thick of battle.

1) Turn the page.

Imagine you’ve just clicked ‘C, Next, Confirm’ on a tough Data Sufficiency problem involving two overlapping triangles and lots of labeled angles. One of the statements was utterly baffling. You spent too much time deciding between C and E, and now you think you probably chose wrong, with your luck.

Forget all that.

You are facing a new problem. This is the only place your mind should be. Take out a ‘blank sheet of mental paper’ and dive in.

Now, as you get into this new problem, a whisper in your head tells you that the problem is too easy, so you probably got the last problem wrong, and by the way – you’re doing poorly overall.

Turn that whisper off.

You should not spend an instant of your time wondering about the past or about ‘how you’re doing.’ You truly have no idea how you’re doing – and if you did know, it wouldn’t help you anyway.

The only opportunity you have to affect your fate is THIS problem. Forget about one minute ago. Focus on the here and now, and do the problem as best as you can.”

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

A Tale of Two Admissions Tests: GMAT vs. GRE

According to reports this week in both BusinessWeek and the Chronicle of Higher Education, there are tiny fissures in the once watertight monopoly wielded by the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) over the business school admissions process.

Albeit with little fanfare, top business schools – including Stanford and MIT Sloan – have begun to allow applicants to submit results from the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) in place of GMAT scores, long the golden standard for business school admission.

What’s the story? According to the Chronicle, it all began back in 2003, when the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), which owns the GMAT, shocked the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which it had for decades contracted to produced and managed the test, by contracting instead with another testing service. (The new contract, with ACT-Pearson, took effect in 2006.)

Its nose out of joint, ETS has started lobbying business schools to accept its GRE test scores from applicants in an attempt to break into the annual $80 million GMAT market. Having formerly run the GMAT, ETS knows that the two tests, in fact, share much in common. Both test verbal, math, and writing skills, and though the GRE doesn’t pose questions about the finer points of accounting or how to interpret Sarbanes-Oxley, the GMAT doesn’t do much of that either.

In fact, the GRE poses several advantages to business schools and applicants alike, ETS argues. ETS has far more testing centers worldwide, making the GRE more accessible than the GMAT. The test itself is cheaper – $140 compared to the GMAT’s $250 fee – which test takers certainly won’t object to. But perhaps most significant, because the GRE is the standard test required for most other graduate programs, business schools stand to widen their applicant pool by attracting candidates that might not otherwise have considered business school as an option.

“Once they realize that they don’t have to take another test to apply to business school, they are going to hedge their bets and explore both opportunities,” David Payne, head of the GRE program for ETS, told BusinessWeek.

According to Derrick Bolton, Stanford’s director of MBA admissions, ETS’s lobbying did not influence the school’s decision to begin accepting GRE scores. “We were talking with faculty about whether we were attracting the most intellectually curious students, about whether MBA programs were attracting students with a genuine intellectual curiosity with the subject matter,” he told the Chronicle.

Stanford Business School has always used the GRE for admission to its doctoral program. “Someone said, ‘Why do we require the GMAT for the MBA?’” Bolton recalls. “It’s just one of those things that you accept as gospel until someone asks you the question.”

According to the Chronicle, about 3 percent of the Stanford MBA class that enrolled in the fall of 2007 – the first year Stanford loosened its admissions test requirements – submitted GRE scores in place of GMAT scores. While a small percentage, the GRE test takers widened the pool in significant ways, Bolton told the Chronicle. GRE test takers, he said, are more likely to be women and younger applicants – undergrads or students just a year or two out of college. “If we are able to fish in both of those pools, how can that hurt us?” he asked.

Defending the GMAT’s position as the standard test for business schools, GMAC President David Wilson questions the value of expanding the pool. “If time were limitless, then the larger the sample, the better. But if time is a constraint, then you want to be sur