GMAT to experience makeover

It’s been 15 years since the Graduate Management Admission Test experienced its last major alteration.

However, that will no longer be true come June.

The Graduate Management Admission Council — which owns the GMAT — announced recently that the exam required by graduate business school programs across the nation will see major changes.

Once implemented, the revamped exam will feature a new Integrated Reasoning section.

According to Andrew Mitchell, director of pre-business programs at Kaplan Test Prep, the new section will emphasize critical thinking.

“The objectives are to judge someone’s ability to organize and evaluate information, to analyze and synthesize it,” he said. “It helps make the test even more reflective of the critical thinking skills that you will need to succeed in business school and beyond.”

The current GMAT contains two essay questions, one quantitative section and one verbal section. The Integrated Reasoning portion — which consists of four types of multiple-choice questions — will replace one of the essay questions.

The Penn community is preparing for the upcoming changes.

Wharton senior Gina Cotter feels that the change to the GMAT is appropriate given the current nature of the test.

“I think it makes sense,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything like that on the test already, so it’s probably a necessary addition.”

Cotter, who is planning on taking the GMAT this spring or summer, believes the change could have an immediate impact on students who are deciding to take the test in the near future.

“For people in my year who are trying to take it before they graduate, it will be nerve-wracking to be the first set of people taking this,” she said.

For her part, Cotter is still debating whether she will take the current or revised version of the test.

Mitchell believes there may be some advantages to taking the exam before the change takes effect.

“If students do so, they can avoid having to study for Integrated Reasoning,” he said. “It will allow them to devote all their time on the quantitative and verbal sections.”

Peter Stokes, Senior Associate Director of Penn’s Career Services, added that the change is a step forward toward testing the actual skills students will need in business school.

“It’s a good effort to make the GMAT a better test,” he said, explaining how it is interesting to see the GMAC try to reshape the exam to include questions that better reflect real-world experiences.

Stokes, who advises pre-health and pre-master’s in business administration students, added that the change is substantial, but not a reason to view the test from an entirely different perspective.

“This is not a reason to panic about the changes to the test. It’s significant, but it’s not a momentous change,” he said.

Although the GMAT is a mandatory component of most graduate business school applications, Ankur Kumar, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid for the Wharton MBA program, stressed that the Wharton School employs a holistic admissions process.

“Everything is important and everything is weighted equally,” she said. “We look at undergraduate academic performance, the GMAT or GRE, recommendations, essays, personal qualities … The GMAT is one piece of that, and it’s part of the holistic review.”

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