Based on responses from more than 15,000 prospective students surveyed in 2012, we saw that nearly half of today’s future students had some concern about potential debt burden (46%) or school requiring more money than they had available (48%), and there is an increased importance of cost as part of the decision-making for an aspiring student.

But the percentage of students with enough concern to have financial reservations about enrolling in graduate business school had lessened since 2008. When selecting a program or school to attend, only 23% of prospective students listed the financial costs of attending school as their top school selection criteria. A majority (39%) instead ranked the quality and reputation of the school as their most important school selection factors. Of course, that is no surprise given the role that program quality and reputation play in helping students achieve their expected postgraduate employment goals—and the vast majority (85%) of prospective students planning to pursue a graduate management degree have definite employment goals in mind.

Economy Affects How Students Pay for School

Nearly 4 out of 5 prospective students indicated in 2012 they were not concerned about the state of the economy and only 18% felt taking time out to attend graduate school would delay job offers. Compared with 2009, fewer students globally expected to borrow money to pay for b-school (23% in 2012, versus 26%) or use grants, fellowships, and scholarships (17% in 2012, versus 21%).

Meanwhile, more students did expect to pay for a greater share of their graduate expenses with support from their parents (20% in 2012, up from 14% in 2009), but that is likely a factor of the increase in younger students considering graduate business programs in recent years. Take a look at the updated financing mix tool (by clicking on the image below) for more details about programs considered.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

As you weigh the financing options available, keep in mind the potential outcomes. Here are a few highlights from business school alumni over the last 10 years:

• High Employer Demand. More than 90% of class of 2012 alumni surveyed last September had jobs, and 67%–74% of full-time MBA grads had started a new job. Plus, world and US economic indicators all point to growing demand for master-level degrees.[1]
• Good Value. 94% of alumni who reported holding loan debt after graduation rated the value of their education as good to outstanding.
• Improved Opportunities. 87% of class of 2012 alumni felt their education offered opportunities for quicker career advancement and increased earnings power.
• Strong Return on Investment. On average, alumni from class years 2000 and onward recouped 50% of their expenses two years after graduation and saw a full return on their financial investment after four years.

Figure Your Finances

To learn more about determining what you can afford, what sources of financing you should consider, and other related information, see articles in the Finance Your B-School Degree section of mba.com. You can also use the School Search Service advanced options to find schools that fit your budget or offer financial aid.

Studying for the GMAT® exam involves making sure you have the basic skills you need, understand the question formats, and know how to pace yourself. The free GMATPrep® software, which includes two computer adaptive practice exams featuring retired GMAT questions, is a key part of any study strategy. It gives you experience taking the exam. Now, the software from the makers of the GMAT exam has been upgraded to help test takers prepare for the exam more efficiently and effectively.

GMATPrep v2.2, compatible with Macintosh and Windows, has been revised based in part on feedback from test takers and test preparation companies. The new version includes several new features, including tools to help you review your responses, analyze your scores, keep track of your pacing, and customize practice sessions by type and difficulty of questions. Five study tips for using GMATPrep v2.2 to study more effectively:

1. Work on your pacing: When answering practice questions, monitor your pace using the timer tools available at the bottom of the screen. These tools compare your time for individual practice questions and the practice question set against the pace needed to complete the GMAT exam in time. Remember, everyone is expected to miss some questions.

2. Customize your practice sets: Concentrate on the question types you need to work on and target your ability level. GMATPrep v2.2 allows you to specify exactly how many questions of each type and difficulty level you want to answer by creating your own question set (click the “More options” button under “Practice answering questions” to access this feature).

3. Learn from your mistakes: Carefully review your responses to practice question sessions and practice exams to understand the reasoning behind the questions, evaluate your areas of weakness, and avoid making the same logical mistakes.

4. Evaluate performance using reports: Use three progress reports to gain insight into areas of strength and weakness.

• The Summary Report brings together results from multiple practice sessions to help you evaluate percentage correct and average difficulty.
• The Performance by Type report allows you to drill down and evaluate results by question type and difficulty.
• How You Managed Your Time helps you understand whether you are on track to complete the GMAT exam in time or if you need to work on your pacing.

5. Practice, practice, practice: Although logging studying hours doesn’t guarantee you a higher GMAT score, GMAC research shows those who score higher on the GMAT exam tend to spend more time studying.

GMATPrep v2.2 software is available for download at mba.com/gmatprep. If you have registered a previous version, you will see an “Update Available” message at the top right of the home screen, which will take you to the download page. You can get access to 404 additional retired GMAT exam questions, not found in any other prep product, by purchasing the GMATPrep Question Pack 1. The pack contains 200 Quantitative, 180 Verbal, and 24 Integrated Reasoning practice questions.

View and Download the Infographic

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To articulate a guiding principle at GMAC, CEO Dave Wilson often quotes Harry Bosch, the protagonist of several Michael Connelly novels, who said, “Everybody matters, or no one matters.” With management education now a global field, and with 59 percent of the GMAT exams taken by non-US citizens, GMAC makes special efforts to assure that every GMAT exam is fair and appropriate for every single test taker. But what is fairness, and what steps does GMAC take to assure fairness for each test taker?

Fairness as Lack of Bias

The GMAT exam is designed so that those who are high in ability will score well, and those who are less able will score less well, regardless of gender, nationality, or native language. These efforts start with formal guidelines on writing culturally appropriate questions, which the authors of GMAT test questions must follow. Questions considered for the exam are subjected to formal fairness review panels. Pre-test data are analyzed to evaluate whether the probability of a correct response is the same for examinees of the same ability, regardless of cultural background. We also conduct and publish validity studies that examine the predictive power of the GMAT by gender, native language, and program type. In addition to identifying and eliminating questions that, based on statistics, function differently across culture groups, GMAC seeks to identify and eliminate language, words, phrases, and content that are either offensive to members of a culture group or makes members of one culture group, but not another, think about things that are not relevant to the test.

Fairness as Equitable Treatment

Fairness requires that all examinees be provided a comparable opportunity to perform on the test. Every step of the GMAT examination process, from the time you arrive at the test center, has been standardized. You complete the same check-in process and are given the same instructions as other test takers. Your tests are administered at comparable testing stations, with everyone taking the test on 17 inch (430 mm) monitors. In addition, everyone takes the Quantitative and Verbal sections of the GMAT as a computer adaptive test. Going several steps further than most testing companies, GMAC also assures that the computer adaptive testing algorithm gives everyone the same number of each question type, not counting pre-test questions.

Fairness as Equitable Outcomes

GMAC occasionally discovers individuals trying to cheat on the GMAT exam, which we view as grossly unfair to all honest test takers. Even the hint of cheating tarnishes our brand and potentially the value of GMAT scores. To combat cheating, GMAC has one of the most active security programs in the testing industry. Our palm vein technology can now identify imposter test takers in real time; we have a carefully reviewed incident monitoring system; we rigorously monitor websites for inappropriate postings of our material; and we have developed state-of-the-art security tools, which we license to some of the largest testing companies.

Fairness as Equitable Opportunities

Access is a major concern for the GMAT exam. We believe that to be best able to demonstrate their ability, all test takers need to take a high-stakes test such as the GMAT exam when they are ready, regardless of location or accommodation needs. GMAC carefully analyzes demand for the GMAT exam globally and opens new test centers as needed. In the past five years, we have increased the number of non-US test centers by 33 percent. Every one of our more than 560 centers is open at least five days a week, and you are guaranteed to be able to find a seat in any center within a 30-day window.

GMAC receives approximately 1,700 requests for testing accommodations each year, most of which involve a request for extra time. Every one of these requests is carefully reviewed. We recognize that denying a request to someone who needs accommodations is not fair to that individual and that granting an inappropriate request is not fair to everyone else. When accommodations are warranted, we determine what accommodations will level the playing field. Too little extra time is not sufficient, and too much extra time can provide an unfair advantage. I can gladly report that we conducted a research study matching accommodated and non-accommodated test takers in 2008 and found no significant difference in the GMAT scores.

Only by investing the resources to assure that their test is valid, reliable, and fair for every test taker, can a test publisher deliver a product that is fair to each individual. GMAC has always chosen this position in the marketplace and has always invested the necessary resources to back it up.

Lawrence M. Rudner, PhD, MBA, is vice president of Research and Development at the Graduate Management Admission Council. This column is adapted from his Demystifying the GMAT column, which originally ran in Graduate Management News in July 2011.

This growing demand for MBA and master’s degrees in management, accounting, and other specialized business fields shows the determination of women around the globe eager to gain a strong start or boost in a business career to open opportunities in the workplace.

Early Career Start

Women are entering the pipeline for graduate business and management programs at younger ages and a faster pace than men: More than half—58%—of women who sat for the GMAT exam in the 2012 testing year were younger than 25. Women also spent less time in the decision-making process en route to business school and entered their b-school programs a full 16 months sooner, on average, than men, from completing their undergraduate degrees to submitting an application.

Making Outcome-Driven Decisions

What’s driving these women? A greater percentage of women cite career prospects when surveyed about their motivators for pursuing a graduate management education. These included: increased job opportunities (73% women vs. 64% men), higher salary potential (68% women vs. 66% men), and opportunities for more interesting and challenging work (59% women vs. 54% men).

Women Represent Internationally Diverse Talent Pool

At 46,000, women from the United States accounted for the largest female talent pool for the GMAT exam last year. However, male test takers still outnumber female test takers in the US by more than 1.5 times. In other areas of the world women are the majority: Proportionally, women from East and Southeast Asia (59%) and Eastern Europe (53%) have greater representation in their regions.

Aspirations and Achievements Are Universal

No matter what their individual goals, women universally credit their degree programs for career preparation and advancement. Review the full-size graphic below for a sampling of the impact management degrees have had on women across the globe.

Put a Business Career on Your Agenda

Get started on your path towards a career in business or management with these smart steps:

1. Register for and prep for the GMAT exam, your first step toward a career with impact.
2. Explore the vast array of graduate management programs available to you.
3. Connect with schools to find a program that best suits your goals.
4. Network with career-driven women with MBA or other management degrees and those currently enrolled in a graduate business program through groups such as the Forté Foundation that sponsor events and programs for women interested in business careers.

Provided by Lawrence M. Rudner, vice president, Research and Development and chief psychometrician for the Graduate Management Admission Council.

Business schools want to know if you can evaluate, synthesize and extract the important information and sort out the noise from very large volumes of data. With the launch of the Integrated Reasoning section in June 2012, the GMAT exam started measuring these skills, which are essential for learning in today’s programs, are expected in today’s workplace, and are of critical importance to the businesses you may create or join in the future.

In the first six months of Integrated Reasoning, more than 105,000 exams have been administered. While it will take more time to establish predictive validity for individual programs – that is, to state precisely to what extent the section adds to the already high ability of the GMAT exam to predict your potential for success in the classroom – we have been able to conduct some preliminary analysis to see whether the test is showing any bias toward or against any subgroups of test takers, and how test takers who score similarly on the Quantitative and Verbal sections perform on the new section.

An Objective Measure

Our first big question was to ask whether different groups of test takers with the same general ability level receive the same IR score.  As the sponsors of the premier test for identifying talent around the world, GMAC needed to ensure that IR was meeting our standards as an impartial, objective measure. Our analysis shows that this requirement has been met unconditionally. The differences between native and non-native English speakers, US and non-US citizens, US white and non-white test takers, and business vs. non-business undergraduate majors in their IR scores —when matched on their Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning skills using analysis of covariance — are, in all cases, less than one quarter of a standard deviation.  The observed differences are psychometrically minor and practically inconsequential.

The process used to develop IR assured that the section would have content and construct validity.  Our surveys of business schools informed the design and documented that IR would, in fact, measure the valued skills. Our item writing, form design, and equating procedures assures that we are assessing what we set out to measure.

How IR and Other Scores Correlate

A remaining issue we’re looking at is predictive validity: Does the IR section add to the already high ability of the GMAT exam to predict core course grades? While we will not have direct predictive validity data for some time, our analysis of the data so far shows that the correlation of IR with GMAT Total is .55. In other words, Quant, Verbal, and IR are all measuring something related, yet also different. The observed IR-GMAT Total score correlation indicates that IR is likely to add meaningfully to the predictive validity of the GMAT. Our 2008 meta-analysis involving 273 programs showed an average multiple R of .53 when predicting core grades from a test taker’s GMAT Total, AWA, and Undergraduate GPA.  Based on the observed correlations from the first six months as well as a number of simulations, we anticipate that adding IR will increase the average multiple R to .59 or better. This is very impressive for a 12-question subtest.

An Additional Data Point

The Graduate Management Admission Council, the global non-profit of leading business schools, has been advocating the use of IR as an additional data point for schools considering candidates with similar GMAT scores. We now have empirical data to support that recommendation.

The following chart shows the distribution of IR scores for all GMAT test takers scoring between 600 and 640 during the first six months. Other score segments show similar distributions. Within each segment, there is a convincing distribution of students with these Integrated Reasoning skills. Other things being equal, the test takers demonstrating more skill in this area within each range can be expected to be better students.

The implications at this juncture are clear. Schools are asking for and receiving IR score distributions for their programs, and we are conducting concurrent validity studies to explore the correlation between IR score and class performance. For students, you should take Integrated Reasoning seriously. IR provides an excellent way for you to distinguish yourself and demonstrate your capabilities. Being familiar with IR needs to be part of your test preparation.

Lawrence M. Rudner, PhD, MBA, is vice president of Research and Development and chief psychometrician for the Graduate Management Admission Council. This blog post is reworked from a Demystifying the GMAT column that originally ran in Graduate Management News in January 2013.

1. Refine your 10-second elevator pitch. Asia-Pacific companies had the greatest demand for new MBA and business master’s degree-holders in 2012, according to GMAC’s Corporate Recruiters Survey. With so many companies seeking the best talent, many firms aim to find it fast. Research shows that first connections between applicant and potential employer are a matter of seconds, and the résumé or CV is often what opens that conversation. Make sure you have a brief statement at hand about what you can offer a company—you never know what opportunities may come from even a brief encounter!

2. Develop deep industry knowledge. Survey results suggest that employers seek at least three years work experience and select candidates to interview based on job function and industry expertise. Employers also want job candidates who show awareness of a company’s profile and business goals. For example, more than half of Asia-Pacific firms surveyed in 2012 (52%) sought to expand their customer base, 37% intended to launch new products or services and 42% of firms planned to expand into new geographic markets, even as 30% would focus on overcoming economic challenges. Emphasizing your skills and industry knowledge can help meet these goals and increase your chances of grabbing a recruiter’s attention.

3. Begin your networks with internships and immersion. Internships, company treks, immersion weeks, and other experiences within the region can be invaluable for gaining cultural fluency and building your in-region network. Seeking an internship in the Asia-Pacific region while still enrolled in school may bridge the work experience gap and help you qualify as a recruit employers may want to hire early. In GMAC’s year-end poll of employers, 65% of companies worldwide expected to offer internships to MBA students, and 13% planned to increase the number of internship spots they offer to MBAs in 2013—great news considering research shows internships not only help a candidate get hired but also earn more. Social media can be another means of building up your network of personal contacts and potential job connections. Last year 53% of Asia-Pacific companies reported using social media both to advertise jobs (55%) and network with potential candidates (50%). As universal as Facebook is for social networking, consider adding sites like PaGalGuy in India or Weibo in China as part of your regional job search

4. Develop a compelling story and deeper connection to the region. Convey your passion to future employers about why you want to work in a region beyond the tourist’s adventure. Developing language skills or studying art or cultural traditions are tangible signs a potential employer might view as a commitment to the region since they often cross personal and professional dimensions. Demonstrate your interests in your résumé or CV over time—well before your job search begins. Such relationship-building experiences may be the key that gets you past the elevator pitch and a foot inside the company door.

5. Go for global learning! Get your degree (or part of it) in Asia-Pacific. More than 650 programs across the Asia-Pacific region currently use the GMAT exam in their admissions process. Many Asian schools also offer partnerships, semester exchanges, or joint-programs with schools close to home that might help you ease toward your long-term goals.

Channel the wisdom of the Snake—The more you know the better prepared you’ll be for your future. Read more about what to expect when studying abroad and the value of global classrooms.

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy New Year! 

Here are a few reasons why you should make an internship part of your job-hunting or career-development strategy – before completing your graduate business program.

Get Noticed

You have mere seconds to get the attention of a recruiter in person or through your resume/CV. Hiring managers want to see not just your MBA or master’s degree, but what types of industry expertise and skills you can bring to a job. Most corporate recruiters look at the following when selecting the MBA candidates they will interview:

• Prior experience in a job function (66% of companies),
• Industry experience (51%), and
• Years of work experience (44%).

Work experience, whether gained prior to your degree or through an internship during school, can be your key to landing a job after business school. Keep in mind, 3 out of 4 employers we surveyed plan to offer internships in 2013 to graduate business students, and companies use those internships as part of their recruiting tactics.

Edge Out the Competition

In 2012, employers reported that 69% of their MBA interns who applied for a full-time job received an offer. MBA grads who interned in the consulting or finance/accounting sectors had even better chances for job conversion with 74% and 73% of MBA interns landing full-time employment offers, respectively.

Boost Your Starting Salary

Post-degree earnings for class of 2012 b-school graduates who completed an internship while in school were 28% higher, on average, than starting salaries for their peers without internships. Similarly, the income boost for grads with offers of employment directly from an internship was more than double the salary increase of other grads who stayed with their original employers during and after business school.

B-School Interns Earn More: View the Full Graphic

Polish Your Skills

Employers want candidates who have industry experience and solid leadership, managerial, technical, and analytical skills. An internship can provide you with the tactical, hands-on operational understanding of how a business runs and a chance to demonstrate the skills that employers seek in job candidates. To learn more, explore mba.com and discover what employers seek in new MBA hires.

Find Your Niche

Internships can take you places you never imagined. One US alumnus from the class of 2011 who attended school in and currently works in the United States recounts: “The main takeaway from my MBA was opening me to more options for a career and through my internship I found something I am interested and passionate about. I am currently working in the industry of international trade and working towards consulting, which is what I really want to do as my career.”

Hear From B-School Alums About Their Internships

Take steps now to visit your career services office and find out more about available internship openings. Hear more about what b-school students and recent b-school alumni have to say about their internship experiences.

Here are just a few of the ways MBA graduates have used their program to make some unique career transitions.

1. Head to Silicon Valley
French engineer David Axelrad used his MBA at Grenoble Graduate School of Business to explore new business opportunities for his employer STMicroelectronics. His findings impressed STM so much that they shifted him from an engineering role in France to a business role in California.

Brandon Yahn gave up a well-paid management consulting career and headed to Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 2010. Yahn, whose first degree was in engineering, has always wanted to work in the tech start-up world and while at Haas he landed an internship at Bay Area software firm Evernote, which will help his shift to a start-up or VC firm.

2. Do business in other regions of the world
Italian Claudio Scotto graduated with an MBA from the UK’s Aston Business School in 2000. Ten years later, his MBA combined with his manufacturing experience, gave him the confidence to start West Africa’s first fruit juice processing plant, exporting Sierra Leonean mango juice to Germany. His firm, Africa Felix has been covered on CNN

British music industry executive Michael Shaw was at the MBA program at the UK’s Open University Business School when he learned about volunteering opportunities in Africa. After his MBA, he went to South Africa to volunteer with his wife, and ended up setting up a consulting firm there with clients including USAID and the World Bank. He says he wouldn’t have been able to win those contracts without his MBA.

3. Land a job on Wall Street
Beirut-born Karim Jaroudi had worked in investment banking in Dubai, London and Singapore for four years when he took a break and embarked on the HEC Paris – NYU Stern dual degree MBA. With access to alumni across two continents from two prestigious universities, he landed a job as an investment banking Associate in New York City on graduation.

Chicago native Arthur Williams was the first person from his family to go to college. He went on to work at a private equity firm in Chicago and it was there that he first heard of Wharton, from a partner who had been at the school. After his own Wharton MBA, Williams headed to New York to take up a position as a vice president at a middle-market private equity firm.

4. Become an entrepreneur now… or in a few years
Just one year after completing an MBA at London’s Imperial College Business School, music-obsessed Israeli Nadav Poraz set up WhoSampled.com, a site that allows its users to discover and discuss sampled music, remixes and cover songs. The site is now a hitin the US, the UK, France, Germany and Canada.

An MBA at the Australian Graduate School of Management helped Paul Gray get a job at innovative product strategy consultancy BrainMates, in Sydney. But it was his MBA, in particular the grounding it gave him in finance, that gave Paul and his partners, the confidence to set up kids’ online gaming firm Bubble Gum Interactive. They recently secured US$1 million in funding.

5. Bring more value to your industry
British-born Nicholas Miles worked for Japanese transportation firm NYK logistics for ten years in Europe and Asia, ending up as Deputy General Manager in Shanghai in 2006. Shortly after completing his MBA at Lancaster University Management School in the UK he was hired by auction house Christie’s as Transport Director, in charge of transporting goods worth millions of dollars around the globe. He was recently in charge of handling the Elizabeth Taylor collection,  and that turned over around US$9.5 million!

What will likely differentiate you from other job seekers will be the skills and work experience you bring along with your education and degree. So be sure to add these resolutions to your list for 2013:

Resolution #1: Focus on Sharpening Skills

Employers anticipate the job market for next year’s graduates will be highly competitive, with high demand for experienced specialists and managers. Thus, the importance of skills you bring to a future firm cannot be understated. More than half of all companies we surveyed in November plan to grow their businesses in 2013 by expanding their customer base (56%), launching new products and services (53%), and expanding geographically (37%). To meet these goals, they will seek new graduate business hires who can solve problems, innovate, manage change, and demonstrate critical thinking skills. These skills are also needed to succeed on the GMAT exam with Integrated Reasoning and in your graduate program. Visit the mba.com store for business prep products that can help put you on the path to academic and career success.

Resolution #2: Seek Out Internships Early to Gain Work Experience

One European manufacturer suggested, “Grads should focus on obtaining internships within companies [as] early as possible in order to build contacts for potential jobs.” There is no shortage of internships globally—72% of companies will offer  internships to graduate business students and in 2013 and 65% of companies said they plan to offer internships to MBA candidates, with 13% intending to increase the number of spots available to MBAs. See how internships paid off for B-school students in the blog post Internships: Not Just for Undergrads.

Resolution # 3: Network, Network, Network

Employee referrals remain companies’ #1 tool for recruiting recent business graduates. Start checking your school’s social media even before you get to campus to establish connections with classmates, professors, mentors, advisors, project partners, and alumni—you never know where your post-degree job will come from.

Resolution #4: Attend Recruiting Events on Campus

Nearly all (82%) the employers said they actively recruit graduate business school students directly from universities—so as soon as you get settled into your classes, sign up for recruiting events offered by your career services office. Investigate career paths that interest you and discover what career opportunities different industries offer. As one employer noted earlier this year, students should be “knowledgeable about the industries where they might want to work and have clearly articulated career goals.”

Not sure where to start? The Career Leader^® self-assessment tool available in the mba.com store can help you define your career interests and plan your next job search steps.

Resolution #5: Stretch Your Goals

Keep an open mind about the type of industry, specific job function, or location where you may work in the future. Employers from every region are looking to place grads in jobs around the globe in some capacity to help meet their 2013 goals, which can only increase your odds of landing an offer.

Have a happy new year!

Question: Does the GMAT exam have a fixed number of questions which would be asked for each subsection of the Verbal section? Is there a set number of Sentence Correction, Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning? Is this also the case for Quant? Will there be a fixed number of questions for Problem Solving and Data Sufficiency?

Official GMAT: Every exam includes a fixed number of scored questions of each type. Scored questions are those that count toward your score. However, you may receive a varying number of total questions of each type because pre-test (experimental) questions that do not count are also included in the examination.

Question: Say a candidate is really strong in Critical Reasoning and answers a bunch of 700-800 level CR question correctly. Does this mean the subsequent Sentence Correction and Reading Comprehension questions he receives will also be in the 700-800 level? Or is each question type judged independently? Meaning there could be a situation where the candidate receives 700-800 level questions in Critical Reasoning (because he’s strong there) but at the same time he receives 500-600 level questions in Sentence Correction and Reading Comprehension because he is weak there?

Updated* Official GMAT: If you’ve taken a practice test, you probably noticed that the question types are not all grouped together. After each question you answer, the computer updates your score to the section and chooses the next question. The difficulty is not tracked separately for question types – it is selected based on your current score. So, if you have 700-800 level CR question, then whether you answer it right or wrong can affect the difficulty of the next question, regardless of whether that next question happens to be Critical Reasoning, Sentence Correction, or Reading Comprehension.

Question: On my GMAT exam that I took a couple of months back I scored a 50 in the quant section. On my official score report my quant percentile was reported as 92%. However on the latest percentile rankings, I’ve noticed that a quant score of 50 now corresponds to a percentile of 90% . Right now if I send my score reports to schools , what will my quant percentile be?

Official GMAT: Congratulations on your GMAT score! You did really well! To answer your question, the percentile ranking charts are updated in January with the most recent percentile rankings. Schools will typically refer to the most recent percentile ranking chart, regardless of when you sent your scores. I hope that helps!

Have a question about the GMAT exam? Ask us in the comments below. Or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Beat the GMAT, GMATClub or PaGalGuy!