For those considering a postgraduate degree in the USA, an important part of the application is likely to be an entrance test – usually the GRE or GMAT. In fact, more and more graduate programmes worldwide are asking for scores in one of these tests; even in the UK, universities such as London Business School require you to submit scores in one of the tests to gain entry to many of its programmes.
It used to be the case that business schools and financial programmes would ask for the GMAT, whereas for other types of graduate degrees (such as PhDs or Masters in other subjects) the GRE was commonly used. Nowadays, however, it’s usual for business schools to accept both the GMAT and GRE, since they know that students apply to more than one programme and might end up having to take both.
This raises an interesting question: if the schools you’re applying to accept both tests, which should you choose? To answer this, let’s look at some of the main differences between the two tests.
The GRE comprises two essays, two Quantitative Reasoning sections, and two Verbal Reasoning sections. The GMAT, however, has one essay, one Quantitative Reasoning section, one Verbal Reasoning section, and one Integrated Reasoning section.