GMAT Exam Is Common Thread Among World’s Top MBA Programmes

For the second consecutive year, every school that made the Financial Times newspaper’s ranking of the top 100 MBA programmes uses the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) to evaluate applicants.

McLean, Virginia—For the second consecutive year, every school that made the Financial Times newspaper’s ranking of the top 100 MBA programmes, including the 9th –ranked Hong University of Science and Technology, uses the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) to evaluate applicants. This year’s FT ranking also illustrates the increasing quality of MBA programmes in Asia and the importance of using the GMAT exam as the test of choice in assessing talent from around the world.

The 2010 ranking features ten schools in Asia, including four in China, three in Australia, two in Singapore, and one in India. Several schools made significant jumps from the previous year. HKUST went from #16 to #9, the Indian School of Business went from #15 in 2009 to #12 this year, while the Chinese University of Hong Kong debuted in this year’s list at #28.

All but two of the 10 Asian schools that made the ranking are governing members of the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which administers the GMAT exam. Among the entire 100 schools in the FT ranking, 85 are members of GMAC, including the top 22 schools on the list.

“It is clear by the latest FT rankings that the world is recognizing the quality of management education in Asia,” said David A. Wilson, president and chief executive of GMAC. “This is a trend that will only continue as the global economy requires highly trained managers with international perspective and expertise.”

The number of non-U.S. MBA programmes using the GMAT has been on the rise in recent years.  In Asia, for example, 326 programmes used the GMAT in 2009, compared to 218 in 2006. In Hong Kong, the number of programmes using the GMAT has increased about 43 percent, from 28 in 2006 to 40 in 2009.

GMAC has also reported record numbers of GMAT tests taken around the world for the most recent testing year, including a 74 percent increase in the number of Asian citizens taking the exam from the 2005-06 testing year (34,693 test takers) to the 2008-09 testing year (60,296 test takers).

The Graduate Management Admission Council (www.gmac.com) is a nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools worldwide dedicated to creating access to and disseminating information about graduate management education. GMAC is based in McLean, Virginia, and has a European office in London. The GMAT was created in 1954 and is used by more than 4,700 graduate management programs at nearly 1,900 business schools around the world to assess applicants. The GMAT—the only standardized test designed expressly for graduate business and management programs worldwide—is currently available at more than 450 test centers in over 110 countries. More information about the GMAT is available at www.mba.com.