GRE Rising: Submission Rates & Scores At The 50 Top U.S. MBAs

Less than a decade ago, getting into a top U.S. business school practically required sitting for the GMAT, the numbers-heavy gatekeeper that generations of non-quant applicants learned to dread.

That’s officially changing, even at the most elite programs, according to an eight-year analysis from Poets&Quants.

Among the five M7 schools with comparable GRE data going back to 2017, the average submission rate was just 12.8% that year, ranging from 7% at Columbia Business School to 18% at MIT Sloan. Harvard Business School stood at 12%, The Wharton School at 11%, and Stanford GSB at 16%. (2017 figures weren’t available for Northwestern Kellogg and Chicago Booth).

For MBAs entering in fall of 2025 (Class of 2027), those same five schools averaged a 42.4% GRE submission rate, an increase of 29.6 percentage points in eight years.

While the GMAT is still king – and though the transition to the new GMAT focus edition continues to muddy the data waters – 2025’s submission rates are a striking measure of how quickly the GRE has moved into the mainstream of elite MBA admissions.

GRE Submission Rates At 26 Top U.S. MBA Programs, 2017-2025
P&Q 2026 Rank	School	% GRE 2025	% GRE 2024	% GRE 2023	% GRE 2017	8-Year Change (Ppts)
1	Northwestern (Kellogg)	32%	30%	29%	NA	NA
2	Harvard Business School	44%	41%	34%	12%	32%
3	Columbia Business School	43%	35%	26%	7%	36%
4	Dartmouth (Tuck)	54%	46%	42%	15%	39%
5	Virginia (Darden)	39%	38%	34%	8%	31%
6	New York (Stern)	27%	23%	22%	12%	15%
7	Cornell (Johnson)	27%	22%	16%	11%	16%
8	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	38%	38%	37%	11%	27%
9	Michigan (Ross)	35%	39%	36%	19%	16%
10	UCLA (Anderson)	27%	20%	32%	10%	17%
11	MIT (Sloan)	43%	39%	34%	18%	25%
12	Chicago (Booth)	42%	37%	32%	NA	NA
13	Texas-Austin (McCombs)	37%	28%	30%	18%	19%
14	UC-Berkeley (Haas)	56%	58%	53%	10%	46%
15	Duke (Fuqua)	48%	44%	37%	11%	37%
16	Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	20%	20%	24%	11%	9%
17	Yale SOM	47%	37%	37%	NA	NA
18	Vanderbilt (Owen)	30%	31%	23%	13%	17%
19	Washington (Olin)	17%	17%	27%	27%	-10%
20	Georgia Institute of Technology (Scheller)	24%	14%	30%	25%	-1%
21	North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)	31%	23%	23%	20%	11%
22	Emory (Goizueta)	30%	25%	24%	13%	17%
23	Washington (Foster)	24%	31%	32%	17%	7%
24	Southern California (Marshall)	34%	34%	33%	21%	13%
25	Georgetown (McDonough)	39%	44%	37%	28%	11%
26	Stanford GSB	44%	42%	39%	16%	28%
Source: U.S. News & World Report 2026 MBA Ranking

COLUMBIA LEADS THE M7 SURGE

Columbia Business School posted the biggest one-year increase in the M7, with GRE submissions jumping from 35% in 2024 to 43% in 2025. That’s an 8-point increase in a single year and a striking 17-point rise from just 26% in 2023.

Over the longer term, Columbia’s shift is even more pronounced. Just 7% of its MBA class submitted GRE scores in 2017. That makes its 2025 rate 36 percentage points higher than eight years earlier — the biggest long-term increase among the five M7 schools for which 2017 data is available.

Across the 26 leading U.S. business schools in Poets&Quants’ analysis, an average 35.8% of the Class of 2027 submitted GRE scores, up from 32.9% a year earlier and 31.7% two years ago.

At 10 of the 26 schools, at least 40% of the newest MBA class submitted a GRE.

UC-Berkeley Haas leads with 56% GRE submissions, followed by Dartmouth Tuck at 54%, and Duke Fuqua at 48%. Yale School of Management posted the biggest one-year increase in the group, climbing 10 percentage points from 37% to 47%. Texas McCombs rose 9 points to 37%.

GRE SCORES HOLD STEADY

As the GRE has moved toward the mainstream for the Class of 2027, scores at leading business schools have remained strikingly stable.

Among 16 schools with comparable combined Quant and Verbal scores for both 2021 and 2025, the average moved from 323.6 to 324 — an increase of less than half a point in four years. That’s notable given how GRE submission rates have climbed at many of these same programs.

The upper end remains tightly packed. Yale SOM reported the highest combined GRE score in 2025 at 329, followed by Harvard Business School and Stanford GSB at 328, NYU Stern at 327, and Columbia and UCLA Anderson at 326. At the other end of the reporting schools, Washington Foster posted 318 and Vanderbilt Owen 319. That leaves just an 11-point spread between the highest and lowest reported totals among this group of leading MBA programs.

There has been more movement at individual schools, but even those changes are modest. Georgia Tech Scheller posted the largest gain from 2021, rising 5 points from 319 to 324, while Vanderbilt climbed 4 points to 319 and Stern and Michigan Ross each gained 3. Kellogg and Foster recorded the largest declines, each falling 3 points, while Stanford and Dartmouth Tuck slipped 2.

GRE SCORES AT LEADING U.S. MBA PROGRAMS, 2021-2025
P&Q 2025 Rank	School	2025 Quant Average	2025 Verbal Average	2025 Combined	2024 Combined	2023 Combined	2022 Combined	2021 Combined
1	Northwestern (Kellogg)	162	162	324	325*	326*	NA	327
2	Harvard Business School	164*	164*	328	326*	326*	326	326
3	Columbia Business School	163	163	326	NA	NA	322	NA
4	Dartmouth (Tuck)	160	162	322	322	322	NA	324
5	Virginia (Darden)	NA	NA	322	NA	NA	319	321
6	New York (Stern)	164	163	327	328	326	325	324
7	Cornell (Johnson)	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	324	323
8	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	163	162	325	325	324	324	324
9	Michigan (Ross)	163	160	323	321	322	320	320
10	UCLA (Anderson)	164	162	326	NA	NA	326	326
11	MIT (Sloan)	159–170	NA	NA	NA	NA	325	325
12	Chicago (Booth)	163	161	324	323	325	NA	325
13	Texas-Austin (McCombs)	NA	NA	NA	321	321	319	319
14	UC-Berkeley (Haas)	162	161	323	323	323	324	323
15	Duke (Fuqua)	NA		NA	NA	NA	318	317
16	Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	163	159	322	NA	NA	324	323
17	Yale SOM	166	163	329	330	330	329	330
18	Vanderbilt (Owen)	159	160	319	NA	NA	314	315
20	Georgia Institute of Technology (Scheller)	164	160	324	NA	NA	320	319
23	Washington (Foster)	158	160	318	NA	328	319	321
26	Stanford GSB	164	164	328	327		327	330
Source: Business school class profile data  *Median

WHY THE GRE IS GAINING GROUND

The GRE continues to rise in popularity because top business schools increasingly treat it as an equal alternative to the GMAT. Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Wharton and other elite programs publicly say they have no preference between the two exams and evaluate applicants using either test.

The GRE also offers applicants more flexibility. Because it is accepted across a broad range of graduate programs, candidates who are considering an MBA alongside a specialized master’s, public policy degree, doctorate or another graduate credential can take one exam without committing themselves exclusively to business school. That can make the GRE particularly attractive to applicants who are still weighing several possible graduate-school paths.

For business schools, meanwhile, accepting and encouraging the GRE can help broaden the applicant pool. It can lower one barrier for candidates coming from humanities, social sciences, public service and other less traditional MBA backgrounds who may already be familiar with the GRE or perceive the GMAT’s quantitative and Data Insights sections as more closely tailored to traditional business-school applicants. As schools compete for students with increasingly varied academic and professional backgrounds, the GRE gives admissions teams another way to bring those candidates into the funnel.

WHERE THE GMAT STILL LEADS

None of that means the GMAT is disappearing. It remains deeply embedded in graduate management education and continues to be the test most closely associated with MBA admissions. It was designed specifically for business-school applicants, is backed by the Graduate Management Admission Council, and remains widely accepted by MBA and other graduate management programs around the world.

In June, GMAC announced the GMAT Superscore, a free feature that will automatically calculate a candidate’s best aggregate score by combining their top section scores across multiple attempts of the latest version of the test. The tool will appear in candidates’ MBA.com accounts and on Official Score Reports sent to schools, allowing applicants to combine their strongest verbal performance from one test sitting with their strongest quant performance from another. The result could be a higher overall score than they achieved on any single exam date. It could also make the test more attractive for candidates weighing sitting for the GMAT or GRE.

At most leading U.S. business schools, GMAT submitters still make up the larger share of the entering class.

The Class of 2027 MBAs applied during an era where scores from the old GMAT — officially the GMAT 10th Edition — remain valid for five years and will continue appearing in applicant pools through 2028, even as the redesigned GMAT Focus Exam has become the standard test.

That means business schools are temporarily evaluating candidates across two different GMAT formats, scoring scales, and testing experiences. It also makes year-over-year comparisons more complicated. A 2025 entering class can include students who submitted legacy GMAT scores earned years earlier alongside applicants who took the newer, shorter exam with its revamped Quantitative, Verbal and Data Insights sections.

GRE V GMAT At 50 Top U.S. MBA Programs
P&Q 2026 Rank	School	% GRE 2025	% GMAT Focus 2025	% GMAT Legacy 2025	GMAT Total
1	Northwestern (Kellogg)	32%	46%	20%	66%
2	Harvard Business School	44%	34%	28%	62%
3	Columbia Business School	43%	25%	17%	42%
4	Dartmouth (Tuck)	54%	23%	8%	31%
5	Virginia (Darden)	39%	20%	13%	33%
6	New York (Stern)	27%	26%	13%	39%
7	Cornell (Johnson)	27%	24%	11%	35%
8	Pennsylvania (Wharton)	38%	NA	64%	64%
9	Michigan (Ross)	35%	28%	9%	37%
10	UCLA (Anderson)	27%	29%	7%	36%
11	MIT (Sloan)	43%	35%	20%	55%
12	Chicago (Booth)	42%	39%	14%	53%
13	Texas-Austin (McCombs)	37%	20%	4%	24%
14	UC-Berkeley (Haas)	56%	32%	9%	41%
15	Duke (Fuqua)	48%	23%	8%	31%
16	Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	20%	31%	4%	35%
17	Yale SOM	47%	41%	11%	52%
18	Vanderbilt (Owen)	30%	24%	5%	29%
19	Washington (Olin)	17%	11%	7%	18%
20	Georgia Institute of Technology (Scheller)	24%	18%	6%	24%
21	North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)	31%	22%	5%	27%
22	Emory (Goizueta)	30%	21%	3%	24%
23	Washington (Foster)	24%	44%	8%	52%
24	Southern California (Marshall)	34%	24%	5%	29%
25	Georgetown (McDonough)	39%	22%	7%	29%
26	Stanford GSB	44%	30%	27%	57%
27	Rice (Jones) **	31%	28%	6%	34%
28	Notre Dame (Mendoza)	32%	24%	3%	27%
29	Georgia (Terry)	37%	14%	6%	20%
30	Rochester (Simon)	24%	17%	6%	23%
31	Arizona State (Carey)	40%	6%	2%	8%
32	UC-Irvine (Merage)	27%	30%	8%	38%
33	Texas-Dallas (Jindal)	26%	22%	0%	22%
34	Boston University (Questrom)	21%	11%	2%	13%
35	Florida (Hough)	42%	47%	5%	52%
36	William & Mary (Mason)	5%	0%	0%	0%
37	Brigham Young (Marriott)	14%	28%	3%	31%
38	Texas A&M (Mays)	31%	25%	0%	25%
39	Indiana (Kelley)	22%	18%	4%	22%
40	Fordham (Gabelli)	1%	11%	2%	13%
41	University of Miami (Herbert)	14%	3%	NA	3%
42	Southern Methodist (Cox)	14%	10%	0%	10%
43	Minnesota (Carlson)	6%	13%	0%	13%
44	Wisconsin	16%	11%	5%	16%
45	Babson College (Olin)	5%	8%	3%	11%
46	Ohio State (Fisher)	24%	5%	7%	12%
47	Maryland (Smith)	11%	8%	0%	8%
48	Hult International	NA	NA	NA	NA
49	Texas Christian (Neeley)	19%	38%	7%	45%
50	Rutgers Business School	24%	22%	3%	25%
Source: U.S. News & World Report 2026 Best Business School Ranking

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