What’s a Good GMAT Score?
Applying to MBA programs would be simpler if there was just one “good GMAT score.” If you scored above that mark, you’d be done with the GMAT; if not, you’d know you needed to keep trying. As with most of life, though, it isn’t that simple. In this article, we’ll break down what counts as a good GMAT score and how to know whether you’ve achieved one.
The Building Blocks of a Good GMAT Score
Your GMAT score isn’t just one score. It’s actually five different scores—so you could have both a good GMAT score and a not-so-good GMAT score on the same test!
The most well-known part of your GMAT score is your total score. When people ask what you got on the GMAT, this is usually the number they want to know. The total score ranges from 200 to 800: A 200 is the lowest score you can get, and an 800 is the highest.
However, very few people ever score an 800, and many of them are probably GMAT teachers. Very low GMAT scores are nearly as rare: Only about 3% of test-takers score in the 200s. Almost all test-takers—about 96%—will have a total score between 300 and 760.
The next two parts of a good GMAT score are your Quant and Verbal scores. Each of these will be a number somewhere between 6 and 51.
On Quant, the effective range goes all the way up to 51: A lot of people do get the highest possible Quant score on the GMAT. On Verbal, although you can technically earn a 51, it’s extremely rare. Practically speaking, the maximum Verbal score is a 45; less than one percent of all test-takers score higher than 45 on the Verbal section.
What do those scores all mean? Think of a 760 as being like an A+ on a college exam. An A+ is fantastic, sure, but an A is an excellent result too! We’ll go into what counts as an “A” on the GMAT in a moment.
The last two pieces of a good GMAT score are your Integrated Reasoning score and your Analytical Writing score. Since these two scores aren’t as important as the other three, it’s easier to say what counts as a good score. On IR, a good GMAT score is a 5 or higher (out of 8). On AWA, a good score is a 4.0 or higher (out of 6.0).
How Many People Get a Good GMAT Score?
Here are two good reasons to research what counts as a good GMAT score:
- You’re wondering what score you need to get into a good MBA program.
- You’re curious whether a certain score is especially good or more average.
Let’s address the “curiosity” angle first. GMAC (the organization that makes the GMAT) publishes data on percentiles along with their score data. A percentile tells you the percentage of people you scored better than; for example, if you score in the 80th percentile, then your score was better than the scores of 80% of the people who took the exam.
These percentiles are based on everyone who takes the GMAT. That’s a huge and diverse group, including people who studied a decent amount, people who barely studied, people who took the test seriously, people who just took it on a whim, and even people who do test prep for a living! These percentiles can’t tell you how you compare against your competition for a specific school. All they can do is tell you how common a certain GMAT score is.
Here’s a summary of the data from 2017 to 2019 (the current data set posted on the GMAC website).
About 75% of all test-takers will score at least a 500. A 590 is still a pretty common GMAT score. However, once you’re up to the 670 mark, you definitely have a good score: only one out of every five people (about 20%) who take the GMAT will score that well. And if you want to teach for Manhattan Prep, you need a score that’s earned by only one out of every 100 test-takers.
What about Quant and Verbal? They both use the same scoring range of 6 to 51, but the scoring scale doesn’t quite mean the same thing.
It isn’t all that rare to get a Quant score towards the very top of the 6 to 51 score range. About 3% of all test-takers earn the very highest score of 51:
Compare that to the numbers for Verbal. Only 1% of all test takers score a 45 or higher on this section:
Let’s put these numbers in context. How unusual is a 710 on the GMAT, really? About one out of ten test-takers will score that well. In the United States, one out of every ten adult women is 5’7” or taller, and one out of every ten men is 6’1” or taller.
By comparison, one out of every 100 people will score 760+ on the GMAT—that’s a much more unusual score. That’s the equivalent of a woman in the US being 5’10” or taller or a man being 6’4” or taller.
A Good GMAT Score…or a “Good Enough” GMAT Score?
While the percentile data is interesting, it doesn’t help you figure out what a good score is for you. To get into Stanford, do you need to be one-in-a-hundred, or is one-in-ten good enough?
Many programs publish data on the GMAT scores earned by their incoming class. In most cases, the only information published is the average total GMAT score. Here are some of those scores for incoming cohorts starting b-school in the fall of 2019. For a more complete chart, check out this article from Poets & Quants.
(Note: The 2020 scoring data was skewed due to the pandemic. We’d expect the numbers to eventually bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, so that’s why we’re sharing 2019 data, not 2020 data.)
The average GMAT scores for top-10 programs are typically in the 720 to 730 range. For other highly-ranked schools, the average may be anywhere from the mid-600s to the low 700s.
Think back to high school: What does average mean from a practical perspective? Some of the admitted students will be above the school’s average but plenty of others will be below it. So when you see that a school has an average score of, say, 690, a good percentage of the admitted applicants will have had scores below that number. It’s safe to say that the range likely includes scores 40-50 points below and above that average. From the perspective of most top-50 schools, a 650 is a good GMAT score—though, yes, if you want a top-10 school, you’ll likely need to do better than that.
Research the average score data for the schools you’re planning to apply to. Also check to see whether they share the range of scores for admitted students. Ideally, you would want to be within the school’s range. If you are able to score above the school’s average, that will be a plus for your application—but your GMAT score is just one way, not the only way, in which you can be above average for a particular school. Plenty of people are admitted with lower-than-average-for-that-school scores. That’s literally how the average calculation works!
Calculating Your Own Good GMAT Score
Even a perfect GMAT score won’t guarantee you admission—the schools are interested in much more than your scores—so don’t study for a year and put your entire life on hold in the quest for an elusive 800 score. In addition, every year, there are stories of candidates who were admitted to top-10 schools with scores far below that school’s average. Those candidates excelled in other ways.
But there are certain categories of people who do need to aim for a higher score. If you’re overrepresented among applicant groups (perhaps you’re coming from the banking or consulting industries?), or if there are other weaknesses in your application package (for example, a lower undergrad GPA), you may want to aim for a higher-than-average (for that school) GMAT score to help shore up your application.
You could also use your GMAT scores to address any possible weaknesses in your application. For instance, you might have a weak quantitative background or a history of low grades in quant-related classes. If so, you would want to aim for stronger GMAT scores in the Quant and Integrated Reasoning sections to show an admissions committee that you can handle the quant work in the program. For someone without much of a quantitative background, a score of 45 or higher on the Quant section is usually considered good enough even by top-10 schools. (Though if you are an engineer or financial analyst, you may need to aim higher.) And an Integrated Reasoning score of 6 is good, while a score of 7 is very good (the top score in this section is 8).
Start with the average for your target schools, then add or subtract a few points depending on the strength of the rest of your story. It can be tough to analyze your own application, so you may want to speak with an admissions counselor. mbaMission offers a free half-hour phone call, as well as admissions consulting services.
It’s true that a good score can help your application—but a lower score won’t necessarily keep you out. There are other ways besides test scores to demonstrate your value in your application. It’s easy to become so focused on the numbers that you lose sight of the bigger picture.
A good GMAT score for a top-10 school will look different from a good GMAT score at a top-100 school, and a good GMAT score for you won’t be the same as a good GMAT score for your neighbor. Certainly work hard to get ready for the GMAT (here are some free resources to get you started), but also concentrate on developing all of the parts of your application; the GMAT is only one possible part of the story you can tell.
Good luck and happy studying!
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