After receiving your Official Score Report, you may be tempted to focus on your Total Score. However, it will be just as important to review your percentile ranking as you look to understand your results.
Understanding Your Score
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The GMAT Score Scale
If you're familiar with the previous edition of the GMAT, the GMAT Exam (10th Edition), you'll notice the Total Score scale is different from the current edition, the GMAT Exam (Focus Edition). This change has been made to ensure you and schools can easily distinguish scores between editions.
Total Score
GMAT Exam (Focus Edition): 205–805
GMAT Exam (10th Edition): 200–800
The score scale for the GMAT Exam (Focus Edition) has also been adjusted to reflect changes in the test-taking population, which has become more diverse and global. Over the years, scores have shifted significantly, resulting in an uneven distribution. The updated score scale fixes that, thus allowing schools to better differentiate your performance on the exam.
645 is the New 700
On the GMAT Exam (10th Edition), many test takers aimed for a score of 700. On the GMAT Exam (Focus Edition), a score of 645 is equivalent to a 700 due to the new score scale. Therefore, while scores may look "lower" in comparison, they aren't. The GMAT Exam (Focus Edition) is scored differently, and business schools know this when reviewing your application and paying more attention to your percentile ranking.
Percentile Rankings
What are Percentile Rankings?
Percentile rankings indicate what percentage of test takers you performed better than. For example, a percentile ranking of 75% means that you performed better than 75% of other test takers, and 25% of test takers performed better than you.
Interpreting Your Percentile Ranking
Total Score Percentile
Total Scores for the GMAT Exam (Focus Edition) range from 205 to 805. Your GMAT Total Score is composed of the Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Data Insights sections of the exam. The contribution of each section score to Total Score is equally weighted across sections.
Score Comparison
The GMAT Total Score ranges from 205 to 805 on the current edition of the exam, the GMAT Exam (Focus Edition), while the previous edition of the GMAT, the GMAT Exam (10th Edition) has a Total Score range of 200-800. Because the GMAT Exam (Focus Edition) Total Score scale AND score scale distribution are different from the GMAT Exam (10th Edition), comparing total scores or section scores from the previous version of the exam to the current edition of the GMAT is not appropriate, accurate, or a meaningful comparison of performance.
If your relative competitiveness based on the GMAT Exam (Focus Edition) needs to be compared to the GMAT Exam (10th Edition), it is more appropriate to compare percentile rankings rather than comparing total scores. Use the concordance table linked here to show Total Score distributions between the two versions of the exam by percentile (updated August 2024).