by Matthew Foster, Recruitment and Admissions Manager, Sloan & EMBA-Global
G M A T – four letters that often strike fear into the hearts of busy executives applying to business school. The GMAT exam provides a detailed and specific assessment of an individual’s business academics, but the lengthy preparation and examination time can be prohibitive to executive candidates.
Working with the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) and five other top-tier Executive MBA Schools across the globe, the Executive Assessment (EA) has been designed with executive candidates in mind.
What makes the EA an excellent tool for both Business Schools and Executive MBA candidates is its relevance. It is relevant to executives in terms of its content
as it has much more focus on critical thinking, analysis and problem solving than the GMAT and much less on pure mathematics and grammatical structures. It is relevant in the amount of time needed for the test. There is minimal preparation required, and the test is over in 90 minutes. Finally, it is relevant in its flexibility. There are no rescheduling fees, ideal for executive candidates whose schedules can often change at short notice.
The test consists of three sections that are similar in broad themes to the GMAT – Integrated Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning. Unlike the GMAT, all three sections count towards a final score of between 100 and 200.
So how should you prepare for the EA?
Unlike the GMAT, there is minimal preparation required for the EA but you do need to spend a little time on it, and successful candidates have spent around 1-2 days preparing.
- Familiarise yourself with the sample questions available on GMAC’s website.
- Depending on your background, refresh yourself with high school mathematic principles.
- Find your local test centre from over 600 worldwide.
Is there a minimum score?
At LBS, we take a holistic approach to applications and, as such, look at all elements together. There is no minimum or recommended EA score (or, for that matter, GMAT) and this forms only one part of the application. We do strongly recommend you take the assessment seriously to best demonstrate your abilities and commitment to the programme. Candidates have found it a useful diagnostic to highlight areas to focus on to get ready for study.
Whichever assessment you choose to take – good luck!