What's a good GMAT score? (with GMAT score chart)

Business schools are all different and have different expectations and uses for your GMAT scores. Generally, the GMAT is used to predict your likely first-year performance in comparison to fellow business school applicants, as studies have shown that a higher GMAT score is a fairly reliable predictor of a more successful first year in business school. There is no one score that will guarantee you admission, though (even if you get a perfect 800 total score). There’s also no one score that will necessarily deny you admission all on its own, either.

When it comes to GMAT scores, the main takeaway is this: ultimately, the most important thing to remember is that a good GMAT score is the one that gets you into the business school of your choice (See how to achieve higher score by choosing the best GMAT prep books and best GMAT prep course).

As of 2021, the mean total GMAT score is 568.21 and the average Verbal score is 27.26, but that doesn’t mean you just have to get above a 550 to get into the school of your dreams. At many schools, even a 600 would be a very low GMAT score. At top MBA programs like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley, and Dartmouth, the average GMAT score of incoming students is above 720.

However, some well-respected schools with high post-MBA employment rates don’t have the same expectations, and have average GMAT scores of less than 600. This is often especially true for part-time and/or online programs geared towards working professionals or those who are somehow lacking in significant relevant academic experience.

GMAT Percentile Rankings

When you apply for MBA programs, you’ll be competing against your peers for a limited number of coveted spots, so your GMAT score will have to compare favorably to theirs. This means that your GMAT percentile rankings are arguably even more important than your score itself.

GMAT percentile rankings, which are provided on your score report, let you know how you did on the exam as a whole and on every section of the exam in comparison to other test-takers. For example, a total score (that is, the Verbal and Quantitative sections combined) of 650 will give you a percentile ranking of 75%. A 75% percentile ranking means that you got a higher total score than (or equal total score to) 75% of your peers and a lower total score than 24% of fellow GMAT test-takers.

650, then, is a good starting benchmark for a high GMAT score: it usually hovers around the 75% percentile ranking spot, which is a solid place to be relative to your fellow applicants. A low GMAT score, on the other hand, is anything under 550.

Percentile rankings are recalculated every year based on the past three years of test-takers. This means that while the possible scores for each section remain the same every year, the percentile rankings change from year to year.

Here are the GMAT percentile rankings from the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) for the past three years, beginning with the total score and followed by section-specific charts for the Verbal and Quantitative sections, the Integrated Reasoning section, and the Analytical Writing Assessment:

Note the differences between Verbal and Quant percentile rankings: A score of 51 would put you in the 99th percentile for the Verbal section and in the 96th percentile for the Quant section. A score of 46 would keep you in the 99th percentile in Verbal, but put you in the 60th for Quant! This gap exists because more students score highly on the Quant section than on the Verbal section, partly due to an increasing number of international students (many of whom have trouble with the Verbal section) taking the GMAT.

The percentile rankings for the Integrated Reasoning section show us that 7% of test-takers get a perfect score on the section, since a perfect score of 8 would put you in the 93rd percentile. A high GMAT score on the Integrated Reasoning section is roughly considered to be 6 or above.

11% of test-takers get a perfect score on the Analytical Writing Assessment. A high GMAT score on the AWA is usually considered to be 5.0 or above.

Which GMAT Sections Are Most Important?

Business schools consider the total GMAT score first, followed by the individual Verbal and Quant sections. Having a significantly higher score in one section over another may indicate your particular strengths or weaknesses to your prospective program.

So what about the Integrated Reasoning section and the Analytical Writing Assessment? Many students wonder how important these sections are to business schools. After all, they aren’t calculated into the overall total score.

The longer answer is that:

1. It’s hard to tell just how much value MBA programs place on the IR and AWA sections, as schools usually don’t publicly report section-specific information. In fact, they usually only report the average total score for incoming students.

2. There is some evidence that the Integrated Reasoning section in particular has become more significant to business schools in recent years. One 2015 survey indicated that 59% of MBA admissions officials claimed to evaluate the Integrated Reasoning section as a significant aspect of an applicant’s profile, in comparison to 41% of the same pool of officials just a few years prior.

3. The Analytical Writing Assessment can be especially beneficial for non-native English speakers. If you can do well on the timed writing assessment, it’s a great indicator of your fluency in English, as MBA admissions officials can know for sure you didn’t have to take too much time to complete it and didn’t have outside help during the test. This can boost your chances of admission.

In short, prepare for both of these sections just as you would for the others. Regardless of their overall significance, an extremely low or extremely high score in either section could certainly affect your application.

What Is a Good GMAT Score to Get Into Business School?

Like we went over previously, there is a wide range of GMAT scores that can gain you admission to your business school of choice. Generally speaking, top 10 MBA programs consistently look for GMAT scores of 720 or above. For mid-to-high-range business schools (those consistently ranked between 25 and 80 on annual rankings lists like U.S. News), average scores of incoming students are usually in the 600-700 range.

So, where can you find the average GMAT scores at your favorite prospective programs? MBA class profiles, like this one from Harvard Business School, are usually published yearly, as soon as an incoming MBA class is admitted and accepts their offers of admission. Class profiles are a treasure trove of information about how you might fit into various schools in terms of demographics, work experience, GPA, undergraduate major, and, yes, GMAT score.

What Is a Good GMAT Score for You? Setting a Target

Remember that the main criterion for a good GMAT score is that it helps you get into the business school of your choice. A high GMAT score for one applicant could be a low GMAT score for someone else— it just depends on what your business school plans are.

Thus, the first step in GMAT preparation is setting your own target score. This will help you know what kind of prep you need to do: do you need to brush up on a few targeted areas? Or do you need long-term, in-depth GMAT instruction? It will also help you calculate how many hours you’ll need to study.

How to Calculate GMAT Scores

First off, how does GMAT scoring work? The “total” GMAT score report combines your Quantitative and Verbal scores, but doesn’t take any other parts of the test into account. Remember this key fact as we take a closer look at GMAT scoring, because you’re going to see a lot of different score types! After you take the exam, your GMAT Score Report will have the following components:

• Your Quantitative Score (0 – 60), with percentile
• Your Verbal Score (0 – 60), with percentile
• Your Total GMAT Score (200 – 800), with percentile
• AWA Score (half-integers from 0 to 6), with percentile
• Integrated Reasoning score (integer from 1 to 8)

As soon as you finish your GMAT in the test center, you will get almost the entire GMAT score report right away—everything except your AWA score, because that requires a human grader to review it. The total GMAT score report arrives about 20 days later, finally including your AWA score.

Don’t know if you should take the GRE or GMAT for admission to graduate studies? Read the following:

• GRE Prep Books
• GRE Prep Courses