Reston, Va. (June 17, 2020) — As a council, GMAC has played a role in business school education for close to 70 years, and we are committed to advocating on behalf of business schools and candidates. Inherent in our purpose is working to create more access and opportunities for people who want to pursue the benefits of graduate management education.
Racism has no place in our society and certainly not in GME. We believe that growth and opportunities should be available to all. As a mission-driven organization, our purpose is to ensure that talent does not go undiscovered.
We live our values through our work. The Council’s commitment to diversity has been reflected over the years in support of numerous efforts such as Destination MBA, The GMAC/AASCB Minority Summer Institute, the Diversity Pipeline Alliance, the Diversity Advisory Group, the Diversity Net Resource Guide, and our most recent candidate effort- MBAs of Impact, a web series designed to showcase MBA alumni of color for prospective students of color. This was in direct response to research data that demonstrated that candidates of color felt they didn’t have people in their networks to guide them along a graduate management education path.
Recognizing the power in collective efforts, we have partnered with or championed the work of many organizations through the years, which includes but is not limited to: Forte, MLT, NBMBAA, Prospanica, Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, MBA Jumpstart, ALPFA, Management Leadership 4 Tomorrow, the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, the HBCU Deans Roundtable, MBA Jumpstart and the PhD Project. We also appreciate the partnerships we have with many industry organizations to grow and strengthen GME.
A focus of GMAC’s work on behalf of business school has always been our research and market intelligence analysis on behalf of universities and the business school community. Research we have published on Underrepresented Minorities in the United States and their pursuit of Graduate Management Education includes:
GMAC is committed to supporting global diversity in the candidate pipeline. We see value in this research and will continue to provide market intelligence for the industry on changing demographics and global measures of progress.
Historically, standardized testing is not immune to concerns of bias. Fairness is vital to standardized testing, and we take the inclusive approach of involving numerous subgroups directly in our test design processes to ensure fairness. We also understand the importance of looking beyond today’s testing models and are developing options such as a soft skills assessment and new forms of preparation that give more candidates access to the opportunities found through GME. GMAC is committed to continuing to develop solutions that provide deeper understanding into each segment of the population and evaluate the totality of a candidate’s talent and to continue to provide candidates with access to opportunities.
We all own a piece of this, and working together, we can move forward. This community has had the courage of conviction to deal with challenges in the past, and together we can continue to have the uncomfortable conversations and move the difficult work forward.
Thank you for allowing us to partner with you on growing and strengthening graduate management education. We welcome your feedback on how we can better break through systemic barriers and actively support each other as a community in working towards anti-racism – we welcome your thoughts, questions and comments on collective action here.
Sincerely,
The Graduate Management Admission Council
About GMAC
The Graduate Management Admission Council™ (GMAC™) is a mission-driven association of leading graduate business schools worldwide. Founded in 1953, GMAC creates solutions and experiences that enable business schools and candidates to better discover, evaluate, and connect with each other.
GMAC provides world-class research, industry conferences, recruiting tools, and assessments for the graduate management education industry, as well as tools, resources, events, and services that help guide candidates through their higher education journey. Owned and administered by GMAC, the Graduate Management Admission Test™ (GMAT™) exam is the most widely used graduate business school assessment; GMAC also owns and administers the NMAT by GMAC™ (NMAT™) exam and the Executive Assessment (EA). BusinessBecause and The MBA Tour are subsidiaries of GMAC, a global organization with offices in China, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
To learn more about our work, please visit gmac.com.
Media contact:
Teresa Hsu, Senior Manager, Media Relations, GMAC +1 (202) 390-4180 or thsu@gmac.com
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