Admissions Blog

USNews: 10 MBA Programs With the Highest GMAT Scores

By 21st March 2018 March 24th, 2018 No Comments

Source: USNews

By Ilana Kowarski
Mar. 20, 2018.

At the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, incoming students in fall 2017 had an average GMAT score of 737. (Stanford Graduate School of Business)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or grad school search.

As average GMAT scores at top business schools have skyrocketed, that trend has added stress to the MBA admissions process. Some applicants worry that if they don’t achieve a stratospheric score on the test, which has a maximum score of 800, they won’t get into top schools.

However, MBA admissions experts say that while GMAT scores are important, they are not necessarily the deciding factor, since other application components like the resume and essay also matter.

It’s also essential, experts say, to bear in mind that the average GMAT score at a business school is not a cutoff score, since there are admitted applicants who score above and below that number.

Among the 127 ranked business schools that submitted these data to U.S. News in an annual survey, the average GMAT score of their incoming full-time MBA students in fall 2017 was 631. In contrast, among the 10 schools with the highest scores, incoming students had an average GMAT score that was nearly 100 points higher: 728.

Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business boasted the highest average GMAT score, 737, the same number as last year.

On the other end of the spectrum, among the 10 schools with the lowest GMAT scores, incoming full-time MBA students had an average score of 504.

Below is a list of the 10 business schools where the average GMAT scores of incoming full-time MBA students were highest in fall 2017. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

Business school (name) (state)Incoming full-time enrollment (fall 2017)Average GMAT scoreU.S. News business school rank
Stanford University (CA)4187374
Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)4787326
Harvard University (MA) 9287311 (tie)
University of Chicago (Booth) 5827301 (tie)
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)8637303
Yale University (CT)34872711 (tie)
Columbia University (NY)5497279
University of California—Berkeley (Haas)2827257 (tie)
Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)29372210
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)4047225

Don’t see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find GMAT scores, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.

U.S. News surveyed 480 schools for our 2017 survey of business programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News’ data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Business Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News’ rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The GMAT data above are correct as of March 20, 2018.