H arvard Business School is doing it. So is Stern . Sloan and Stanford have been doing it for several years and next year, Wharton will do it, too.
A growing number of business schools are giving applicants the option of taking the GRE (Graduate Record Exam), a standardised test used by a wide range of graduate schools, as an alternative to the GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) - the prevailing standardised exam used for admission to MBA programmes.
Schools want to attract a more diverse applicant pool, including dual-degree students, younger applicants, women, international students and applicants who were not previously laser-focused on business studies.
"It's driven by business schools trying to expand their market of good students, not a defect with the GMAT," says John Fernandes, president and chief executive of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business , the industry body.
The GREmeasures verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and analytical writing skills. It is used by a variety of advanced education programmes and markets itself to students considering a range of professional options. The GMAT, also measures basic verbal, mathematical and analytical writing skills and is billed as a tool that "helps business schools assess the qualifications of applicants for advanced study in business and management".
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