Why Choosing a Relevant Exam Can Improve Your B-School Experience

Data analytics has become a hot topic for business schools in recent years. According to a 2022 survey of 104 global business schools, over 60% planned upgrades to their MBA curriculum in the next five years, primarily opting for a greater focus on data analytics.

Applicants to business schools know that they must prove to admissions teams that they’ve got the skills to succeed in their graduate business program. With business schools opting to prioritize data analysis skills, your business school entrance exam must show that you’ve got those skills.

If you’re looking for a relevant exam to prove your mettle to business schools, the updated GMAT exam, the GMAT™ Focus Edition, is the best choice. This GMAT Focus Edition has been redesigned to focus on relevant critical skills for business school applicants, including data analytics.

Let’s look at why choosing a relevant entrance exam is necessary for applicants and how the GMAT Focus Edition can lead to success at business school.

The Skills Business Students Need

Today, business students need more than just a knowledge of finance and leadership potential to succeed. As competition for internships increases, employers are becoming more specific about the skills they want to see in current business students and graduates.

According to the GMAC’s 2023 Corporate Recruiters Survey, today’s employers value communication, strategy, and data analysis above other business skills. For example, these skills rank higher for relevancy than typical skills such as business ethics, decision-making, and inter-personal skills.

Data analytics is a particularly vital skill for current business students to acquire. Globally, the data analytics market is expected to grow by 27% by 2030 as more companies leverage data analytics skills to solve operational problems and improve efficiency.

Additionally, further data from the study shows that students with data analytics skills may be more employable than those without. The Corporate Recruiters Survey shows that Master of Data Analytics graduates were hired more than other Business Master’s graduates in the US in 2022. In Central and South Asia, Master of Data Analytics Graduates were the most in-demand business graduates, beating MBAs.

With employers increasingly looking for data analysis skills in new hires, business schools are changing tack. Many institutions are adapting MBA curricula to include new courses in data analytics to specifically prepare students for business careers where data analytics skills are highly valued.

Consequently, it’s all the more important that candidates can show business schools that they’ve got these relevant skills before they start their desired program.

Taking an entrance exam that tests skills necessary for business careers will give you the best chance of securing your place at business school and prove to schools that you’ve got what it takes to succeed on a program – and in the business world.

What Makes the GMAT Focus Edition Relevant

The GMAT Focus Edition is an updated version of the GMAT exam designed by and for business schools. Program directors joined the redesign process to make this exam the most relevant standardized entrance exam for business school candidates.

“We’ve curated the GMAT to focus on the most relevant skillsets that corporate recruiters and business schools told us are most critical for success,” explains Manish Dharia. “The skillsets we’re really getting after are problem-solving, critical thinking, and data literacy.”

The exam tests candidates on these in-demand skills through three different sections: Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and the new Data Insights section. And while these sections have been designed to test applicants on the skills they’ll use at business school, the Data Insights section has perhaps the most relevance to applicants’ future careers.

“Through the inclusion of the new Data Insights section, we’re providing test takers and business schools much better information about this highly relevant skillset around data analytics,” adds Manish.

Your GMAT Focus Edition score now tells business schools how well you perform on data analytics problems, allowing them to evaluate your readiness for a business degree and real-world business experiences.

Testing Data Analytics Skills

The Data Insights section of the GMAT Focus Edition incorporates questions from the previous Integrated Reasoning section of the GMAT Exam, but with some crucial updates to make the test more relevant to today’s necessary data skills.

“Data Insights may feel like a different version of Integrated Reasoning, but really, there is so much more going on in the background,” asserts Manish. “We’ve pulled in Integrated Reasoning and data sufficiency [from Quantitative Reasoning] and recalibrated the whole section to get an understanding of the test takers’ data analytics skillset.”

The Data Insights section features 20 questions across five question types:

• Data Sufficiency
• Multi-Source Reasoning
• Table Analysis
• Graphics Interpretation
• Two-Part Analysis

Overall, these question types test your ability to analyze and synthesize real-world information that you might find in a business situation. This contextual element is vital, as it gives students a chance to prove they can interpret data and adapt to different business scenarios.

During the Data Insights section, test takers will need to interpret data in various forms, including tables, graphs, and verbal data. You’ll be asked how the information relates to each other and how you can use the data provided to make decisions.

Consequently, the skills that the Data Insights section measures are precisely the same skills that business schools will look for in applicants – the ability to solve problems and apply data literacy to different business scenarios.

“It’s the only business school admissions exam available that provides schools the information they are specifically looking for about candidates,” says Manish.

Skills for the Future

But the GMAT Focus Edition isn’t just relevant for a candidate’s application to business school. The skills acquired through study prep and tested on the exam, particularly data analysis skills, will be relevant for any future business career.

Not only did employers in the 2023 Corporate Recruiters Survey cite data analysis skills as being vital for the current business world, but they also said they expected this skill to grow in importance over the next five years.

According to McKinsey, by 2025, most employees in an organization should be leveraging data to make business decisions on a day-to-day basis. This means that any business graduate should be prepared to make data analysis a crucial part of their future business role – and this starts by leveraging those skills in your business school application.

"Because candidates taking the GMAT Focus Edition can demonstrate their data analytics skillset, they are showing schools that they really have what it takes to succeed in the business school classroom and beyond,” concludes Manish.

Are you ready to take the next step to business school? Register today for the GMAT Focus Edition.