Gone are the days when applying for an MBA
programme blindly meant you had the take the Graduate Management Admission Test
(GMAT). Most GRE coaching centres
say today one needs to take into consideration the individual needs and
requirements of the university that is being targeted as well.
The GRE
In recent years, the Graduate Record Examination
(GRE) was revised and a General Test was born. This gave students an
alternative test for business school applications. What started out as a test
for programmes other than business related ones, suddenly found itself being
the perfect tool for management schools that wished to employ from a wider
spectrum of applications. A large number of MBA programmes internationally
accept this exam as a base of evaluation.
Understanding the Courses
The GMAT examination is designed not to test the
business knowledge possessed by the candidate as much as it is designed to
evaluate the skills one requires excelling in such a programme. You can see
that the content for both the examinations are on an extremely similar foundation.
The GMAT consists of four sections analytical writing, integrated reasoning,
quantitative testing and verbal reasoning. The GRE however has three parts to
it designed to test the verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and analytical
writing of a candidate. Both of them take almost the same duration of time to
complete with the GRE taking 15 minutes more than GMAT that takes 3 hours and
30 minutes to complete. The GRE is also about 20 percent cheaper to take than
the GMAT with rates being the same internationally. The GRE can also be taken
by paper in some cases versus the GMAT that is only a computer based
questionnaire.
A New Era of Doubts
The new advancements today have given birth to new
doubts and reservations. Most students are now plagued with the question of
which test is a better path to choose. The GMAT is a beaten but known path
whereas the GRE is a versatile and new mode.
The current numbers show that although GMAT is
still the leader with more than 6000 institutes accepting it whereas GRE has a
smaller list of around 1000 schools. However, the numbers are at a sharp rise
with more and more institutes accepting GRE scores as well.
A GRE coaching centre advised that with the top-notches like Yale, Harvard and
Stanford accepting GRE, make sure you check each individual university’s
allowances once you have a list of schools you wish to apply to. Students who
wish to join a particular graduate school but aren’t certain about following
the path of business should opt for the GRE due to its flexible nature.
