RESTON, VA--(Marketwire - February 2, 2011) - European business schools are attracting a steadily increasing share of the global market of prospective students interested in management education, according to an analysis released today by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), owner of the GMAT exam.
In addition, European citizens planning to attend business school are showing greater interest in attending institutions located within Europe than they did five years ago, GMAC researchers found. Europeans also are taking the GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) at a growing rate, and account for a rising percentage of the worldwide GMAT testing pool.
"We're seeing clear signs that more and more people view Europe as an excellent place to study business," said Julia Tyler, GMAC's London-based executive vice president of member services and school marketing. "Europe is home to an expanding base of high-quality management education programs -- and the world is taking notice."
Among the key trends highlighted in the 2010 European Geographic Trend Report:
- Business schools in Europe attracted 11 percent of all GMAT score reports sent in testing year 2010 (July 1, 2009-June 30, 2010), up from a 7.5 percent share in 2006. Put another way, European institutions received 85,262 score reports from people who took the GMAT exam in 2010, up nearly 90 percent from the 45,079 score reports test takers sent to European institutions in 2006.
- The United Kingdom drew more GMAT score reports from around the world than any other country in Europe in 2010, just as it did in 2006. But the U.K.'s overall share of Europe-bound GMAT score reports declined from 43 percent to 41 percent even as the country attracted a growing percentage of scores sent by European citizens.
- European citizens sent 42 percent more GMAT score reports to schools around the world in 2010 than in 2006 -- and they directed proportionately fewer of those reports to schools in the United States, the world's top destination for GMAT scores. The top countries in Europe to which Europeans sent GMAT score reports in 2010 were the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and Spain.
- India and China together accounted for more than a third of all GMAT score reports sent to European institutions in 2010. The two Asian nations each sent more score reports to European business schools than citizens of any individual European country.
- German citizens sent 6,075 GMAT score reports to European institutions in 2010, the most among European citizenship groups.
- European citizens took the GMAT exam a combined 24,324 times in 2010, an increase of 42 percent compared with the 17,189 exams they took in 2006. Worldwide, GMAT testing volume rose 29 percent over the same period, to 263,979.
The European Geographic Trend Report is part of an annual series of reports about where prospective management education students from around the world are interested in studying. The reports are available at www.gmac.com/geographictrends.
About GMAC and the GMAT exam
The Graduate Management Admission Council (www.gmac.com) is a nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools and owner of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT® exam), used by almost 5,000 graduate business and management programs worldwide. GMAC is based in Reston, Virginia, and has regional offices in London, New Delhi and Hong Kong. The GMAT exam -- the only standardized test designed expressly for graduate business and management programs worldwide -- is continuously available at more than 530 test centers in over 110 countries. More information about the GMAT is available at www.mba.com.