One In Four Adcoms Using Google To Check On MBA Applicants

Source: Kaplan Test Prep 2011 survey of MBA program admissions officers

Slightly more than one in four MBA admissions officers have Googled applicants to learn more about them, while more than one in five have visited their Facebook page, according to a telephone survey of admissions officials by Kaplan Test Prep

Of the admissions officers who have used Google or Facebook to check on applicants, moreover, 14% of them admitted discovering something that had a negative impact on their MBA application.

The telephone survey gathered responses from admissions officers from 265 MBA programs, including 16 of the top 25 as ranked by U.S. News & World Report. The survey was conducted by Kaplan in July and August of 2011.

For the first time since Kaplan began tracking school attitudes toward the GMAT and GRE tests in 2009, Kaplan said a majority of business schools now allow students to submit scores from the GRE instead of the GMAT. Two thirds—exactly 66% of the schools—said that applicants had no advantage in submitting either a GMAT or GRE score for admission. But some 29% of the responding admission officers at schools that accept GRE scores conceded that there was an advantage for the GMAT.  Some 5% said it would be more advantageous for an applicant to provide a GRE score.

Source: Kaplan Test Prep 2011 survey of MBA program admissions officers

In any case, responding schools told Kaplan that relatively few applicants are submitted GRE scores over GMATs. Some 37% of the admission officers interviewed said that GRE scores represented less than 10% of the total scores submitted last year.

At schools that had continue to accept only GMAT scores, more than a third of the admission officials said they were very likely or somewhat likely to accept the GRE as an alternative for MBA applicants in either 2012 or 2013.