GMAT Preparation & Requirements for Executive MBA

Are you thinking about taking a graduate school admissions exam to apply to Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives?


Don’t miss the opportunity to find out which exam is right for you. Join Vice Dean Peggy Bishop Lane along with Directors of Admission Diane Sharp (Philadelphia) and Barbara Craft (San Francisco) as they discuss:

  • How to decide which test to take
  • How to prepare for each exam
  • Whether there is a minimum required score
  • How Wharton evaluates scores in the admissions process

Preparing for a Graduate Entrance Exam

Diane Sharp: Director of Admissions, Wharton MBA Program for Executives in Philadelphia

Barbara Craft: Director of Admissions, Wharton MBA Program for Executives in San Francisco

Peggy Bishop Lane: Vice Dean, Wharton MBA Program for Executives

WHY WHARTON REQUIRES STANDARDIZED TESTS

Peggy: We want to ensure that all of our students are capable of being successful in the program. A lot of times, the information we have to assess you is a little bit older, and a standardized test can give us some more recent information. For a lot of applicants, that’s helpful if your transcript is old and you were a really different person 10 or 20 years ago. Taking a test today, or a year or so ago, gives us a sense of how capable you are now. It also gives us a uniform way of assessing you. If you think about transcripts across universities, grades can have really different meanings. When we’re looking at standardized test results, we know exactly what that score means.

A secondary reason is that studying for the standardized test and taking that test is good preparation for what you’re going to go through in our program, as you’re going to be doing a lot of studying and test taking. Whether you’re taking the GMAT, GRE, or Executive Assessment, that preparation will benefit you, and it’s also going to let us know how ready you are for the program.

TESTS WHARTON ACCEPTS

Diane: We accept three tests: GMAT, GRE, and Executive Assessment (EA). We do not waive the test. Everyone needs to take one of these tests.

The EA is the newest, and it is designed for executive programs only. At Wharton, we are piloting this test because there’s not enough data out there to understand what the results would mean as people go through the program. In order to be able to submit the EA score for your application, we require you to have at least 10 years of work experience. 

All of these tests are valid for five years. Take them when you feel ready. You might not be ready for business school right away, but it will still be valid.

HOW WHARTON USES TEST RESULTS

Barbara: We take a holistic approach to our applications. When it comes to the standardized test, we’re going to look at your test scores relative to your other academics. We’re not going to be looking at your transcripts just to see that you actually graduated, but we’re going to look at the competitiveness of the academic institution that you attended and the coursework. For instance, with our liberal arts graduates, we may not see a lot of quantitative courses, so we’re going to be looking closely at their performance on their standardized tests in the quantitative areas. For people who didn’t perform as well as they had hoped during their undergraduate education, standardized tests can be a redeeming factor. 

Again, this is very holistic, and it gives us the opportunity to see where there may be any gaps and to advise applicants in those areas. We’re also going to look closely at someone’s work experience, their career progression, essays, letters of recommendation, and also sponsorship.

Peggy: I’ll talk about how we use each of the tests. We’re comfortable with the GMAT because we’ve been using it in our program for a long time, so we understand how those scores relate to performance in our program and how they relate to somebody’s prior academic experience, etc. In a lot of ways, we prefer the GMAT just because we know what it means for our candidates.

That said, the GRE has a lot of history and data. They provide us with tables that allow us to move from a GRE score to a GMAT score, so we can use those to understand what the GRE score means in terms of being successful in the program. 

For the EA, it’s a bit harder for us to make those kinds of judgments because there’s not enough data out there. Part of why we’re in the pilot program with GMAC is that we want to help them develop the data along with the other pilot schools. We are interested and happy to have you take that test if you’ve been out of school for a while, but it does make it a little bit more difficult for us to know what that score means. In those cases, we might be relying more heavily on somebody’s transcript or work experience when we’re looking at those scores.

PREPARING FOR A STANDARDIZED TEST

Peggy: Whatever test you’re taking, preparation is important. Don’t be misled by what you might see online about the EA, where they tell you you can just jump in and take this test. Frankly, you can just jump in and take any test, but the more you study, the better you’re going to do. An important thing to note with the EA is that you can only take it twice, and so doing it without any preparation is risky if you want to take it multiple times.

Barbara: We do not combine test scores. We will take your best score within the last five years. 

Diane: Test prep sites will tell you how long people study on average to get a solid score. But you want more than your average or solid score to apply to Wharton. You want to go above and beyond what you read there. You’re going to need to put in the work now to prove to us that you can put in the work later. 

 

Q&A

 

Are you penalized or at a disadvantage if you take the EA versus the other two tests? 

Diane: I wouldn’t put it as a disadvantage. If you’ve been cleared to take it — you have that 10 years work experience and you have had that conversation with us first — the only way you would be at a disadvantage is if you did not put in the time to study. 

Barbara: Studying for any of these standardized tests is a great dress rehearsal for what’s to come. It’s a good opportunity to start figuring out where you are going to carve out that kind of time. I assure you it’ll be the least amount of studying you will do if admitted to the program. 

Do you have a minimum or preferred quant score/percentile for the GMAT?

Diane: There is no cut off per se. We see your quantitative multiple choice score and your integrated reasoning score (those are the quantitative sections), and we’ll have your transcripts. So it’s not just a standalone number, but rather a combination of the above. We could see that you have the foundation from your undergraduate studies and maybe didn’t hit the mark on the test. That means there’s more rust than you thought. Or maybe we don’t see the foundation in your undergraduate studies, and you don’t hit the mark. Then we know you need actual course work. We would like to encourage you to get that kind of feedback before you take a test. You’ll see at the end of this Webinar the opportunity to schedule a chat. You’ll be asked on the form whether you’re applying to the West or East Coast campus, and we will get in touch with you to talk about your strategy. Take advantage of that. We can give you feedback the day after you take the test and let you know if it’s going to be a competitive score given your overall application and if there’s still time to retake it. 

Barbara: That’s why it’s important to take these exams early enough to get the feedback and take steps to improve your score if needed. Give yourself a little bit of runway so if you need to retake the test then you still have the time to do it. 

What is the difference between the GMAT and EA? What does each test evaluate? 

Peggy: The GMAT is a longer and more involved test than the EA. The GMAT is able to discern scores better than the EA because it has more data in itself. You’ll see on the GMAT that there are verbal, quantitative, integrated reasoning, and writing portions of the exam. With the EA, there is no writing portion, so it’s just the other three. The other difference is the technology behind how they’re graded. The GMAT is graded based on how you’re doing in each section. Depending on your earlier answers, you get harder or easier questions as you go in each section. The EA, because it’s a shorter exam, doesn’t work that way. You take the integrated reasoning section, and then your score there determines whether you’re getting more difficult or easier questions in the quant and verbal sections.

How much does the Admissions Committee look at the integrated reasoning and writing scores in the overall GMAT score?

Barbara: We take all sections of these standardized tests into consideration. They’re all important. Don’t take any of them lightly. If you don’t come from a quantitative background and you don’t have a lot of quantitative classes in your transcripts, then this is an opportunity to demonstrate that you have the quantitative chops to be successful in the program. 

Why would you choose the GMAT versus the GRE or EA? Are certain skills, backgrounds, capabilities best for a specific test?

Peggy: In my opinion, the GMAT was designed as a test for business school. So if you want to go to business school, you should probably lean toward the GMAT. The GRE is more widely accepted amongst different programs (our full-time MBA program accepts the GRE), so if you’re not sure which kind of graduate program you want, you might take the GRE. The EA is probably more appropriate if you’ve been out of formal schooling for a long time. It’s just kind of whittling down some of the detailed types of verbal and quantitative questions and making it a bit more accessible.

Would it hurt my application if I take the GMAT multiple times, or does admissions only look at the highest score?

Barbara: We look at the highest score. Typically, we don’t see people taking the GMAT more than two times. That said, if you’re taking it more than once, step back and reflect to see what kind of increase you need. And take the time to prepare. Don’t just take it again and again with hopes of improving your score. Take it thoughtfully and spend time in between exams. When we start seeing someone taking it three or four times, we usually don’t see much of an increase in the score, and sometimes we actually see a decrease.

Can you recommend test prep materials or websites?

Diane: We can’t just recommend one because each of you has a different prep style, method, etc. We always recommend talking to people you know who’ve been successful in studying. You could submit an unofficial copy of your transcript and your resume in advance so we can have a chat and provide more specific advice. But we don’t point to a place and say this is where you need to prep.

Barbara: There are some free online prep resources out there, and that’s a good place to start. Khan Academy in particular has a free online section about the GMAT with practice problems and math review.

 

This webinar was originally recorded on May 23, 2018