Reston, Va. — Sept. 23
Last year was a record year for the GMAT exam, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, as a total of 286,529 GMAT exams were taken with 831,337 score reports sent to 5,281 graduate business and management programs around the world.
GMAT exam volume for the 2012 testing year — July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012 — was up 11 percent from the 2011 testing year and 8 percent higher than the previous record of 265,613 in 2009.
The record volume partially reflects increased interest in the exam brought on by the addition of the Integrated Reasoning section on June 5. Historically, test volume rises just before changes are made to a standardized exam as test takers opt for a familiar format at the transition.
Key trends:
The 2012 testing year was a record year for GMAT volume, score reports sent and number of programs receiving scores. Globally, 286,529 GMAT exams were taken, with 831,337 GMAT score reports sent to 5,281 programs.
The number of programs receiving scores was up 7 percent from 2011 and 21 percent from 2008.
Roughly 560,000 GMAT score reports were sent to MBA and EMBA programs, and 240,000 scores went to other masters programs — such as accounting, finance and management — in testing year 2012.
GMAT testing outside of the U.S. continues to grow. Tests taken by non-U.S. citizens rose 19 percent in 2012 and represented 59 percent of global GMAT volume.
Chinese test takers, the second-largest citizenship group after the U.S., represented 20 percent of global testing. In 2012, the number of exams taken by Chinese citizens increased 45 percent to 58,196 exams.
Indian citizens, the third-largest citizenship group, took 30,213 GMAT exams, a figure that increased 19 percent in 2012.
The percentage of exams taken by women hit 42.9 percent in 2012 — a record for the third straight year.
U.S. metro areas observing increases in GMAT testing among residents included New York City and Los Angeles (up 8 percent), Chicago and Boston (up 4 percent), and Washington, D.C., (up 10 percent) in testing year 2012.
Source: GMAC
