The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is the test that Indian graduates looking to study abroad, as well as in some premier B-schools such as the ISB, hope to crack. In testing year 2013, there were 25,268 aspirants who took the test and in TY 2014, the number was 28,325 — a 12 per cent increase.
There was a 17 per cent growth in the total number of women test-takers and a 10 per cent growth in the number of men taking the test.
“GMAT volumes hit a nine-year record in India,” said Sangeet Chowfla, Global President & CEO, Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which administers the GMAT.
The attractiveness of the GMAT was counter to what was happening with the CAT, which saw declining applicants, said Chowfla in an interview on the sidelines of the recently-held Indian Management Conclave organised by MBAuniverse.com at the ISB Hyderabad campus. Chowfla said the fact that institutions such as the ISB require the GMAT for students to qualify adds to the numbers of test-takers.
“There continues to be an interest from Indian students for degrees offered by international institutions. A combination of these factors led to GMAT hitting a record in India, while the GMAT globally continues to grow,” explains Chowfla, an economics graduate from St. Stephens College and an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.
Chowfla shot into the limelight earlier this year as another Indian-origin person to head a global institution. GMAC is a non-profit education organisation of the global graduate business schools and owns the GMAT exam, which is accepted by more than 5,500 graduate business and management programmes in over 110 nations across the world.