Highlights from Kaplans

2010 Business School

Admissions Officers Survey
To ensure that prospective business school students receive accurate and up-to-date information on key trends and
relevant issues in the business school admissions process, Kaplan Test Prep annually surveys admissions officers
at MBA programs across the U.S. The survey data collected helps us to provide informed guidance to the tens of
thousands of business school applicants we work with each year. For many years, Kaplan has also been surveying
admissions officers at colleges, graduate schools, law schools and medical schools. Following are the results from this
years survey of business school admissions officers.

What Business School Admissions Officers Say On:

General Admissions and Financial Aid Trends

2012 GMAT * Changes

Applicants

Social Networking

About the survey methodology: admissions officers from 288 MBA programs including 22 of the top 30 programs as ranked by U.S. News & World Report
were polled by telephone in July and August 2010.

On General Admissions and Financial Aid Trends

Which would you say is the most important factor in the
business school admissions process?
Admissions exam score (GMAT/GRE)... 42%
Undergraduate GPA ............................ 40%
Work experience ................................ 15%
Essays ................................................. 2%
Letters of recommendation .................. 1%

(For schools who answered yes): What potential population

of students do you think would most benefit from your schools
decision to accept the GRE?
Applicants from non-business
backgrounds ...................................... 86%
Non U.S. applicants ............................. 8%
Female applicants ................................ 3%
Older applicants................................... 3%

Which would you most consider to be an application killer?

A low admissions exam score (GMAT/GRE).48%
A low undergraduate GPA ................... 33%
Lack of relevant work experience ........ 10%
Poor letters of recommendation ........... 5%
Poorly written essays............................ 4%
Does your program give applicants the option of submitting
a GRE score instead of GMAT score for admissions?
No...................................................... 60%
Yes .................................................... 39%
Not sure ............................................... 1%
(For schools who answered no) What are you plans regarding
making the GRE a part of your admission process?
No plans to consider the GRE ............. 75%
Considering accepting the current GRE... 19%
Waiting until the new GRE is released
in 2011 to evaluate options ................. 5%

(For schools who answered yes): Is there an advantage for

an applicant to submit one admissions exam over the other?
No advantage..................................... 65%
There is an advantage in submitting
a GMAT score...................................... 32%
There is an advantage in submitting
a GRE score........................................... 3%
How likely is it that a strong admissions exam score will
help an applicant receive merit-based scholarships?
Very likely .......................................... 58%
Somewhat likely ................................ 31%
Not too likely ....................................... 7%
Not at all likely ..................................... 4%

69% of admissions officers at schools who accept

a GRE score for admissions report that less than
1 in 10 applicants actually submitted a GRE score
instead of a GMAT score this past cycle.
78% of the admissions officers surveyed predict
an increase in the number of applicants for the
current cycle.
On 2012 GMAT Changes
In general, how do you feel about the recently announced
addition of an integrated reasoning section to the GMAT?

Have you ever discovered claims on an applicants business

school application to be exaggerated or untrue?

Positive .............................................. 31%

Neutral .............................................. 47%
Negative .............................................. 3%
Dont Know ........................................ 19%

No...................................................... 51%
Yes..................................................... 49%

How do you think the addition of the integrating reasoning

section will affect the difficulty of the GMAT?
The exams level of difficulty will
remain about the same....................... 42%
The exam will be more difficult............ 21%
The exam will be easier......................... 3%
Dont know......................................... 34%

On Applicants
Do you anticipate the number of applicants to increase or
decrease during the current (2010 2011) application cycle?
Increase.............................................. 78%
Stay the Same.................................... 14%
Decrease.............................................. 8%
Have you ever received a negative letter of recommendation
submitted by an applicant?
Yes .................................................... 61%
No...................................................... 37%
Not sure ............................................... 3%

Do applicants who graduate from your undergraduate

institution have any advantage in the admissions process
over students who do not graduate from your school?
No...................................................... 80%
Yes..................................................... 20%

On Social Networking
When it comes to visiting applicants social networking pages
and factoring these into the admissions process, does your
program have official guidelines or policies?
No...................................................... 94%
Yes ...................................................... 6%
Have you personally visited an applicants social networking
website to help you make an evaluation?
No...................................................... 91%
Yes ...................................................... 9%
Has an applicant ever sent you or a fellow admissions officer
at your program a networking request on LinkedIn?
Yes .................................................... 66%
No...................................................... 34%

*GMAT is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admission Council. 10GMAT0102