<p>Hi all, Bagels here.</p>
<p>So I took the GMAT last week and bombed it:
650 (verbal: 97th percentile, math, 41st(!!!!) percentile, overall 79th percentile)</p>
<p>Exactly one week later (and on the day the HBS app is due) I took the GRE and rocked it. Percentiles weren't given so I used the percentile chart in the Kaplan GRE book to estimate:
720 verbal (99th percentile)
740 math (somewhere between 94th and 97th percentile)</p>
<p>The elephant in the room though, of course is...how will b-schools judge the GRE? This is HBS's first year so there's no past performance to look at, but are there other schools who took it instead?</p>
<p>This is just an educated guess, but I am assuming that business schools would expect more business-oriented applicants (investment bankers, consultants, accountants, etc.) to take the GMAT and other applicants (real career changers – teachers, health professionals, etc.) to take the GRE. </p>
<p>I believe that the idea of accepting the GRE was designed to encourage a wider variety of people to apply to business school, including students who are applying to academic graduate programs requiring the GRE (who might decide to apply for a joint MBA program).</p>
<p>GMAT is preferred over GRE.</p>
<p>Here’s an article from BW:
[GRE</a> or GMAT: Test-Takers’ Dilemma - BusinessWeek](<a href=“Businessweek - Bloomberg”>Businessweek - Bloomberg)</p>
<p>740 math on the GRE is nowhere near the 90th percentile (more like 80th). A 780 on the actual test is the 89th percentile and a perfect score of 800 is only the 94th.</p>
<p>Yeah the Kaplan thing seems to be way off on the math…Princeton Review’s chart would have my math score at around 80th percentile. But with a good verbal that should put me at ~90th percentile overall…good enough, or so I will find out come April…</p>
<p>Thanks Liu02hbs for the article! Still, I’m glad HBS doesn’t require me to submit my lousy GMAT score!</p>
<p>Schools do not do a percentile comparison between GRE and GMAT, because the tests covers different demographics. So having a higher GRE percentile isn’t going to help you much.</p>
<p>when the GRE is as higher than the GMAT as mine is, it will definitely make a difference.</p>
<p>At least, let’s hope so!</p>
<p>Bschool knows GMAT is harder than GRE, so 1460 on GRE will not equate to 730 on GMAT.</p>
<p>Which is fine, because I did significantly worse than 730. I really screwed the pooch on the GMAT and I’m glad I could quickly take the GRE before the app deadline and show I wasn’t ■■■■■■■■.</p>
<p>Besides, when it comes to HBS, this is their first year taking it. So we can make guesses at how HBS will take it, but they are all only guesses.</p>