The landscape of business school admissions is changing. Most graduate programs have begun accepting the GRE as an alternative to the GMAT in their admissions processes. In fact, the portion of MBA programs accepting the GRE has jumped from less than 25% ten years ago to over 90% at present. And the list includes many heavy hitters: Harvard Business School, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and MIT’s Sloan School all now accept the GRE in lieu of the GMAT if applicants choose to submit it. However, GMAC, the organization behind the GMAT, will be quick to remind potential applicants that 9 out of 10 accepted students in the top B-schools in the country got in with a GMAT score… not a GRE. So the difficult question is, which test to take?

First, it is important to remember that although most business schools now accept the GRE, that doesn’t imply that most applicants know that they do. Given how recent the shift toward accepting the GRE has been, it may be reasonable to conclude that many B-school applicants are taking the GMAT simply because they are unaware that there is another option. The connection between the GMAT and business school admissions is long-standing, and many applicants believe that it’s their only choice.

For a long time, that was true at most schools, so why the shift? One important factor is that business schools are looking to become more inclusive, drawing in applicants who may not have studied economics or finance as undergraduates. Accepting the GRE is one way for schools to broaden their appeal and attract applicants who wouldn’t expect to fare very well on the GMAT.

And it is important to recognize that the GRE and GMAT are substantively different test. Students who do very well on one may not perform as impressively on the other. There are some incidental differences (The GRE is 38 minutes longer and $45 less expensive than the GMAT), but the important ones come down to students’ strengths and weaknesses. The GMAT focuses heavily on logic, grammar rules and quantitative skills (including a considerable Quantitative section that does not allow the use of a calculator) while the GRE leans more toward vocabulary and interpretation. Though it also contains a challenging quantitative section, the GRE provides testers with a calculator for the computational aspects of the test.

Ultimately, prospective business school applicants will want to showcase their strengths and should pursue whichever test better does so. If you’re interested in exploring your stronger test, reach out to Scott Moser at scott@mosereducational.com or 303.819.4328 to discuss your graduate goals and how to evaluate your relative skill sets.