Poets&Quants’ Most Popular (And Important) Stories Of 2020

More and more students are opting for the Graduate Record Exam over the Graduate Management Admission Test, a fact celebrated by the coronavirus pandemic.

5. Average GMAT Scores At The Top 50 Schools

This one had all year to percolate and gain readership. Always a popular staple, our Average GMAT story took on added significance when coronavirus hit two months after publication. The story is popular because while the data don’t change much long-term — since 2015, only three B-schools in the Poets&Quants top 25 have seen an overall decline in the average GMAT score of their incoming full-time MBA classes; seven more schools in the lower 25 have seen a decline over that span — in the short term, many schools experience declines — and a few endure dropoffs of the dramatic variety. Expect more drama when we publish the new version of this story in the next few weeks.

The story’s cousin, Average GRE Scores at the Top 50 B-Schools, published annually in March, was even more popular this year — and we can probably expect it to contend with Average GMATs for the foreseeable future.

4. 15 Biggest Regrets Of MBA Students

This is a fun story we do annually based on surveys of graduating MBAs. “What happens,” writes P&Q editor Jeff Schmitt, “when you blend students from various industries and countries? Energy, that’s what – and ideas too.” But not all ideas pan out — and not all were worth pursuing in the first place. That’s one of the biggest regrets of members of the Class of 2020: stretching yourself thin and missing out on  more valuable pursuits. “It’s so easy to get distracted by literally all of the fantastic events and programming that enrich the experience,” UCLA Anderson’s Ajey Kaushal admits. “But it’s equally easy to lose yourself and stretch yourself thin. I would have done a better job of speaking to my peers ahead of me and identifying what are the core aspects of the experience I should definitely immerse myself in, and pick one or two other aspects that I could use for stress relief and strengthen relationships with my peers. Otherwise, it can lead to some pretty late nights and some skipped meals.”

3. U.S. News’ 2020 MBA Ranking

U.S. News publishes its annual ranking, the biggest of the year, every March. This year that occurred right after virus shut down every B-school campus, an unprecedented disruption in graduate business education. As a reflection of the “old normal,” however, it remained an invaluable resource — and a guide to what everyone expects (or at least hopes) will be returned to in the not-too-distant future. Perhaps the most notable development in the ranking itself was Harvard Business School sinking to fourth place, its lowest ranking ever.

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