Asked which of the two exams they would most likely take if their top choice schools would accept either one, 55 percent of survey respondents said they would take the GMAT, compared to 12 percent who would take the GRE, Kaplan reports. Twelve percent said they would most likely take both.

The majority of prospective applicants report they would take the GMAT over the GRE even though they consider the GMAT to be the harder of the two exams, Kaplan reports. Of the 300 aspiring MBAs polled in January and February 2010, 47 percent considered the GMAT to be more difficult than the GRE, with only 10 percent saying they think the GRE is more difficult, Kaplan reported.

These findings come as Educational Testing Services (ETS), which owns the GRE, is taking steps to make its exam an attractive option for business school admissions, including major test changes that would make the exam more difficult, according to Kaplan.

“The GRE test maker has made headway in gaining acceptance with many competitive MBA programs, and the announced test changes are most likely designed in part to make it more attractive to business schools,” Liza Weale, Kaplan Test Prep director of graduate programs, said in a statement.

Key changes planned for the GRE include multiple answer questions in each the verbal and math sections of the test, in which test takers must select all answers that correctly apply rather than just one. The verbal section also will be changed to include sentence equivalence questions that call on test takers to select two answer choices out of six that would correctly complete a given sentence and would create two similar sentences when used separately. The math section will also be changed to include questions that require test takers to enter the correct numeric answer to a math problem, with no choices given.

The new GRE, which will be administered beginning August 1, 2011, will also be a Multi-Stage Test (MST). This means that while it will still use computer-adaptive technology, test takers will be able to skip around within individual sections.

Despite these planned changes and the decision by some schools to accept GRE scores as an alternative to GMAT scores, test prep giant Kaplan is still recommending that prospective business school applicants take the GMAT.

“According to a recent Kaplan survey, the majority of top business schools are still GMAT-only and report that they are not currently planning to accept the GRE,” Kaplan’s Weale stated. “So for now, we’re recommending that students applying to business school take the GMAT, and students applying for other graduate programs take the GRE,” she continued. “Aspiring MBAs who only take the GRE may be limited their options,” Weale concluded.

Today we turn our attention to options for studying healthcare in business school, with a particular emphasis on Wharton’s Health Care Management Major and Duke’s Health Sector Management Program, the two oldest and best known healthcare programs among U.S. business schools.

Wharton’s major draws its faculty from the business, medical and nursing schools, as well as from practicing healthcare professionals, ensuring an interdisciplinary approach to the issues in the field. The Health Care Management major differs from other majors at Wharton in that students must choose the major in their initial application to the school instead of in their second year. Health Care Management further differs in that it aggressively integrates professional development and field work into the major.

For instance, all Health Care majors are required to complete a Field Application Project (FAP). In the FAP, teams of students spend a semester working with an industry partner to solve real world problems in the healthcare field. Given the amount of time these projects can take, students must work carefully to balance classes around the demands of their projects.

At Fuqua, students enter the HSM program from a variety of backgrounds; though the program does not require prior health sector experience, it does look for a strong commitment to the healthcare field among all participants. As with Wharton’s Health Care Management major, application to Fuqua’s HSM program is through the MBA admissions process, with HSM applicants asked to indicate their interest in pursuing the HSM Certificate in a special section of the application.

Once enrolled, Duke HSM students spend the first year completing the standard core curriculum before beginning the coursework that leads to the HSM Certificate. To earn the Certificate, HSM students take three HSM core courses and three healthcare electives. All six HSM courses count as elective credits towards the MBA degree requirements. This is a slightly heavier courseload than required by Wharton’s healthcare program, which asks students to complete two foundations courses and three healthcare electives.

Despite the prominence of the Wharton and Duke programs, they are far from the only option for MBA applicants seeking a career in healthcare. For instance, Columbia now offers the Health Care and Pharmaceutical Management program, Kellogg offers a major in Health Industry Management, and HBS hosts the Healthcare Initiative. Those business schools that do not offer formal healthcare concentrations tend to have a student club and/or a student-organized conference dedicated to supporting interest in the field, so regardless of the program, healthcare minded applicants should find plenty of resources.

For more on healthcare options, majors, student clubs or conferences, be sure to check out the Clear Admit School Guides.

For those who are interested in pursuing a career in healthcare and want to learn more about the different programs and opportunities available at each school, check out the Clear Admit Career Guide: Healthcare.

The new fee waiver program, part of GMAC’s ongoing efforts to ensure universal access to graduate management education, lets business schools apply for up to 10 fee waivers per year that they can then offer to prospective students who can’t afford the $250 exam fee on their own.

GMAC encourages schools to offer fee waivers as part of need-based scholarship and financial aid programs, although schools may also use them to recruit students from financially disadvantaged regions or from other countries, GMAC says. For example, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) uses the fee waivers to help recruit students from what are called “less developed” sections of China, GMAC reports. GMAC will consider such recruitment initiatives when schools apply for more than 10 fee waivers per year.

GMAC does not grant fee waivers directly to prospective applicants, but only through business schools. The business schools that receive waivers, for their part, must provide monthly accounting to help GMAC monitor outreach efforts.

For more information on this new program, click here. Business school administrators who would like to learn more about the program can also email feewaivers@gmac.com.

1) Reevaluate. While it’s certainly difficult when things don’t go to plan, this is actually a great chance to take stock of your career and goals, and make sure that an MBA is still a logical and necessary step at this point. It’s this sort of reflection that can lead to refined career goals and a clearer sense of the reasons you need a business education.

2) Revisit your applications. Once you’ve gained some distance from the emotional and time-consuming application process, it’s wise to review the materials you submitted to the schools with a critical eye. Having learned much about the process simply by applying, it’s likely that you’ll be able to identify a number of things that you could have done better. Whether you suspect your downfall was something like a strategic misstep in an essay or interview, or a more glaring weakness like a low GMAT or lack of extracurricular involvement, there is plenty of time to address your shortcomings before submitting an application next year.

3) Consider your data points. Your results this year may reflect some valuable information about your competitiveness at a top program. It’s important that you only apply to schools that you would be happy attending, but if you were unsuccessful at all of the programs to which you applied, it might be time to think about how realistic your list of target schools was and to add a few more to the mix. This is especially true for applicants who only applied to one or two programs this time around; there is an element of randomness and luck in the admissions process, and no matter how qualified the applicant, we recommend that a candidate target 4-6 programs to have a strong chance of success.

4) Schedule a feedback session, if applicable. While it’s possible that you’ve identified your weaknesses in retrospect or even were aware of them when you went into the process, if you’ve been denied by a school that offers feedback to applicants and are planning on reapplying, you should absolutely take advantage of this opportunity to learn of the adcom’s perspective and demonstrate your commitment to the program. In fact, reapplying without seeking feedback when offered can raise questions for the adcom concerning how seriously an applicant is taking the process and the school. Of course, some schools do not offer feedback to anyone and others, such as Tuck, selectively offer feedback only to particularly promising candidates. There is naturally high demand for this service at programs that provide slots on a first come, first served basis, so it’s important that you make a point of requesting a feedback session at the earliest possible time.

Of course, the adcom can only be so candid, and it’s important to seek out feedback from other objective and knowledgeable sources. Send an email to info@clearadmit.com for more information about our tailored application feedback and reapplicant advice.

We all know that the GMAT is a computer adaptive test, and computer adaptive tests give us questions based on the difficulty level that we “earn” as we take the test. How do the test writers at ACT (the organization that writes the GMAT) determine which questions are harder than others?

First, ACT engages in a process called “normalization,” wherein all freshly written questions are tested by actual test takers to determine what percentage answer the questions correctly (we know these questions as “experimental” questions). If too many people answer correctly, the question may need to be toughened up. If too few people answer correctly, the question may need to be dumbed down. ACT is looking to assemble a pool of questions that covers a range of difficulty, from cakewalk to mind-bending, and the test takers help them do so.

How does ACT find these test takers? Easy. Everyone who takes the GMAT will end up answering up to 10 unscored “experimental” math questions and 10 unscored “experimental” verbal questions. These questions are interspersed with the actual, scored questions with no way to identify them as experimental.

Second, the writers at ETS have a general sense of what makes a 50th percentile question, or a 75th percentile question, or a 90th percentile question. Because each test is designed to evaluate proficiency in the same range of topics, the writers have to come up with ways to test the same concepts at different levels of difficulty. That’s where “layering” comes in.

So, in a nutshell, a simple problem is made increasingly complex by adding information to obscure the core issues. In Sentence Correction questions, you are given a sentence in which a portion has been underlined. Your task is to determine whether the underlined portion is correct as it stands or whether it needs to be replaced with one of the answer choices in order to make the sentence grammatical and clear.

For example, let’s consider the following sentence:

The dog are friendly.

It does not take much effort to see that this sentence is flawed: the noun (”dog”) is singular but the verb (”are”) is plural. This would be much too easy for the GMAT, so the test writers must camouflage the error. One simple way to do so is to insert a lot of unnecessary verbiage between the noun and verb. We call this verbiage the “middleman.” For example:

The dog, which was one of two puppies rescued from the shelter, are friendly.

The subject-verb flaw is a little harder to see now, but still fairly apparent on a first read. If we take out the “middleman” (the intervening clause), we are back to the original sentence (”The dog are friendly”). Notice, however, that the writers have inserted a plural noun (”puppies”) in the new clause so that you have plurality on the brain when you read “are friendly.” If you are already thinking in plural terms, you are much less likely to spot the error. Even on a visual level, the subject of the sentence (”dog”) is so far removed from the verb (”are”) that the eye quickly alights on “puppies” as a possible subject for the plural “are.” As tricky as this may already seem, the writers can put yet another kink in the rope:

Two puppies were rescued from the shelter, but neither of them are friendly.

The error in this sentence is significantly less apparent than those in the previous examples, though it is still the same error: subject-verb disagreement. Here the subject is “neither (of them),” which is singular (think of it as “neither one of them”). The verb, however, is still plural (”are”). The saga of the mismatched subject and verb goes on. Can the writers make the problem even harder to spot? Sure! Let’s take a look at the following example:

Neither of the two puppies that were rescued from the shelter are friendly.

If you compare this sentence with the previous examples, the error is almost completely camouflaged. We can see that the subject is “neither (one),” which is singular, but the verb “are” is still plural. The core is simply “neither (one) are friendly.” The test writers have managed to layer enough “junk” into the middle of the sentence to make it very difficult to spot the error. That junk, though, is just extra information about the subject: “Neither (one) <of the two puppies that were rescued from the shelter> are friendly.” Only those who really know the rules backwards and forwards are going to be able to avoid this trap.

We have gone from “The dog are friendly” to “Neither of the two puppies that were rescued from the shelter are friendly” in a few steps, obscuring the central subject-verb issue along the way. Breaking sentences down into their component parts and analyzing their relationships is the key to success in Sentence Correction.

Major take-aways from Chris’s article:

1. When studying, try to figure out how the author “layered” the sentence to make it more difficult. Can you write a simpler version of the sentence (perhaps with only the core information, not everything)? How did the author make this sentence so tricky?

2. If you can split out the core and understand how the different pieces of “extra” info fit into the core, then you won’t be as likely to fall into a trap on a “layered” question. (You still might fall into a trap – but you will have a much better chance of avoiding it!)

For more information on ManhattanGMAT, download Clear Admit’s independent guide to the leading test preparation companies here.  This FREE guide includes coupons for discounts on test prep services at ten different firms!

She then ticked off a list of interesting reasons why it might make sense. For starters, successful applicants will gain deferred admission, which means they will have a guaranteed spot in the class of 2014 after completing two years in the workforce. Second, HBS does not have a target or cap on the number of deferred admit spots it offers. “Last year 43 college seniors were offered deferred admission,” Leopold wrote.

From a purely pragmatic standpoint, there are also a couple of additional reasons for college seniors to consider applying in Round 3, Leopold added. One is a cheaper application fee. Currently enrolled college seniors enjoy a reduced application fee of $100. It also might make sense to take the GMAT/GRE while you’re in college and still in test-taking mode, Leopold offered. GMAT/GRE scores are good for five years, after all.

According to Leopold, there is “no downside” to applying in Round 3 if you are college senior thinking of HBS for a future date. “If you aren’t admitted, apply again in a couple of years – lots of denied college seniors are successful in the future,” she advised.

The Round 3 application deadline for HBS is April 8, 2010. For more information, click here.

Kellogg ‘11 DG wrote about the importance of  ‘a few good mentors.’ BU ‘11 Felish gave newly admitted students a tour, and looked forward to sleeping over spring break. Chicago Booth ‘11 Globthink publicized the upcoming Chicago Booth European Conference. Kellogg ‘11 Orlando chimed in on an email a Stern professor sent to a potential student, which was a mix of humor and harshness. Harvard ‘11 Military to Businss was moments away from a week-long hiking adventure in Brazil, but took a moment to update his readers on his summer internship plans.

Third years were a relatively quiet bunch this week. Harvard ‘10 Gabrielle saw Christian Soriano in the flesh while attending the school’s Retail and Luxury Goods Conference. Darden ‘10 JulyDream took an 18 hour trip to see an iron ore mine, an ice hotel and reindeer farm. Ronjon went through the recruiting process successfully, even after originally deciding not to.

And that sums up this sensational week’s worth of b-school business. We hope that any round three applicants are feeling good about their submissions, and that current students have locked down their summer internships or full-time job plans. Until next week, have a wonderful weekend!

Though applicants are eager for news, The Assistant Dean of UCLA Anderson MBA Admissions & Financial Aid, Mae Jennifer Shores, noted that she can only promise Round 2 decisions will be released by March 31st.  Students and faculty at Berkeley / Haas ensured that Rich Lyons, the Dean of the Haas School of Business, had a full week; he received student support for a place in the dunk-tank and the faculty’s approval for the school’s new strategic plan.  Across the pond, MBA Admissions Coordinator at Judge Business School, James Barker, hosted several Round 3 candidates for Cambridge’s interview days.  Associate Dean for Student Recruitment and Admissions at Chicago Booth, Rose Martinelli, has yet to determine how the PowerPoint presentation will play a part in next year’s application – if it does at all.

After hosting admitted students this past weekend, Chicago Booth reached the Round 3 deadline.    Student teams at The Tuck School topped a few MBA competitions in modern business.  The Wharton School plugged professors’ publications and research to spread the word on Google, healthcare in India and the state of the U.S. economy. The Kellogg School of Management shared its faculty’s research on executive compensation and hedge fund regulation.

Thanks for tuning into Twitter Thursdays this week!  If you’re on Twitter, let us know; e-mail wiki@clearadmit.com with your user name and status as an MBA applicant, student or admissions officer so we can add you to the appropriate Twitter list.  Happy updating and we’ll see you next week with some more “tweets!”

According to GMAC, increased test taking activity in Europe is part of surge in interest in MBA and other graduate management education programs worldwide. During the 2009 testing year, which runs from July 1st to June 30th, global GMAT testing volume reached an all-time high of 265,613. Of these test takers, for the first time ever this year more than half were non-U.S. citizens. Overall, test taking volume is up 32 percent since 2004. In Europe specifically, it has grown by 30 percent during the same time period.

The recent analysis of test taking volume also revealed new trends in where test takers are sending their scores. Almost 10 percent of GMAT score reports sent globally in testing year 2009 went to programs located in 10 European countries, up from 6.9 percent of scores sent five years earlier. Of these 10 European countries, the United Kingdom and France received the most number of score reports.

“More and more Europeans are recognizing that high-quality management education is available in their own back yard,” Julia Tyler, GMAC marketing executive, said in a statement.

GMAC researchers have found that European citizens are sending a significantly smaller share of their GMAT score reports to programs in the United States and instead sending them to programs in Europe, particularly to British, French, Dutch and Spanish business schools. According to GMAC’s data, the most popular European MBA programs among European citizens in 2009 were those at INSEAD, London Business School and IESE Business School.

For more details on trends in GMAT testing and score sending, click here.

Sixteen Johnson students recently returned from the 2009-2010 India Trek, in which they were tasked with completing a consulting project alongside local MBA students from Somaiya’s Institute of Management Studies and Research in Mumbai.  Students divided into groups and worked on different projects, including consulting with a bio-diesel company, a university on its strategic plan, and an entrepreneur/inventor on his new exercise machine.  In addition, students were able to visit local companies in fields such as bio-tech, venture capital, private equity investment, and pharmaceutics, ultimately meeting with the  Governor or the Reserve Bank of India with whom they discussed India’s financial situation.  The students also traveled to Bangalore, the Indian information technology hub, where they visited the IM-Bangalore campus, an IT firm, a silk factory, a tractor factory, and the hospital that performs the greatest number of heart operations throughout the world.  During their free time, the students enjoyed riding in tuk-tuks, visiting the beaches of Goa, seeing the Taj Mahal.

Meanwhile, other Johnson students spent their winter break on the Hong Kong Trek, where the focus was finding internships and networking for post-grad job opportunities.  On the week-long trip, students had the chance to visit 16 companies, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citi, Nomura (formerly Lehman), Bain, and other banks, buy-side firms, consulting firms, and private equity shops.  During these visits, students had the chance to attend information sessions, and there was also the occasional on-the-spot job interview invite.  Students also had the chance to meet with Johnson graduates based on Hong Kong during a planned social event.

India or Hong Kong – which Trek interests you most?  Feel free to comment below!