Who Should Take the GMAT?

While a growing number of B-schools are now accepting the GRE, the GMAT is still a requirement at many top B-schools.

Fortune recently explained the relevance of the GMAT in today’s admissions landscape and offered insights into when taking the standardized test can work in your benefit.

IDEAL FOR GLOBAL CANDIDATES

The GMAT is a strong indicator of MBA candidacy—especially for global candidates. Simply put, a GMAT score can often be the deciding factor between two candidates from different parts of the world with different educational systems.

“For example, the GPA of a liberal arts student who studied in the U.S., with the GPA of an architecture student who studied in Korea,” says Ashish Bhardwaj, senior vice president and head of market development at GMAC.

A GMAT score is a way of “providing a unique data point, which is truly compatible across the world,” Bhardwaj says. “It’s a good idea to use any tool, which helps spotlight your candidacy to say, ‘Look at me, I think I’m the right fit for this program.”

GMAT CAN HIGHLIGHT ANALYTICAL SKILLS

If you’re applying to B-school with a non-traditional business background, it may help to include a strong GMAT score in your application.

The GMAT can “level the playing field in graduate school for those who don’t have a business background,” Jodey Farwell, hybrid MBA program director at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, says. “That’s the only time it’s beneficial, is if the student has a non-business [undergraduate] degree.”

For those applying to B-school with a traditional business background, skip the GMAT.

“A lot of the students that apply to our program, because they have 10 years of work experience, the GMAT score really didn’t help that much,” Farwell says. “They could justify their quantitative skills or that they’d be successful in the program without taking a test.”

Sources: Fortune, ETS

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