GRE® to GMAT Score Conversion

If you’re trying to decide whether to use the GRE® or GMAT for your MBA application, there are two main ways to convert your GRE® score to a GMAT score. You could compare your GRE® percentile scores to GMAT percentile scores. Or you can use a combination of round numbers, human nature, and the “GRE® 160 sniff-test”.

Let’s take an in-depth look at each.

GRE®-GMAT Score Conversion Option #1: Percentiles

If you’re applying to an MBA program that accepts both the GMAT and GRE®, percentile scores would, on the surface, appear to be a fair way to compare MBA applicants. After all, the 90th percentile is always excellent and the 50th percentile is always average, regardless of which exam you’ve taken.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with this line of thinking. First of all, the GRE® and GMAT differ substantially in their content and design, and they test different skills and abilities.

But the even bigger issue is that percentile rankings compare you only with other people who took the same test, and if the pools of test-takers are different, the percentile comparisons simply won’t be all that meaningful.

For example, if you score in the 80th percentile on the GMAT, that means that you’ve scored better than 80% of test-takers, nearly all of whom are applying to graduate programs in business, just like you (presumably) are. So if you take the GMAT, your percentile scores reflect your performance relative to other business-oriented applicants.

GRE® percentile rankings, on the other hand, are based on the scores of the hundreds of thousands of test-takers who take the GRE® each year, fewer than 15% of whom ultimately apply to MBA programs. So if you score in the 80th percentile on the GRE®, you’ve scored better than 80% of GRE® test-takers, and that figure includes applicants to nearly every imaginable type of graduate program, not just business-focused programs.

The bottom line: since GRE® and GMAT percentile scores are calculated using data from completely different demographics of test-takers, the two sets of percentiles simply cannot be compared fairly.

GRE®-GMAT Conversion Option #2: Round Numbers, Human Nature, and the GRE® 160 “Sniff-Test”

Here’s where we get into the interesting stuff.

Over the years, we’ve had every reason to think that MBA admissions committees don’t actually convert GRE® scores to GMAT scores at all. Instead, they often seem to use a “sniff test” of sorts for GRE® scores. For most applicants to top MBA programs, a score of 160 on the GRE® quant and verbal sections seems to be enough to make MBA admissions committees move on to other aspects of your application.

Let’s face it: people are naturally drawn to nice, round numbers. If 150 is the average GRE® quant or verbal score, then what’s our instinctual dividing line between “good” and “elite”? We suspect that a typical MBA admissions officer (and nearly everybody else) struggles to understand the difference between, say, a 157 and a 159, but a 160 sounds nice and round, right?

So we’ve long suspected MBA admissions officers often tend to feel OK about an applicant’s academic skills once they’re above the 160 mark on both the quant and verbal sections. No other implicit benchmark or “cut score” would seem to make much sense.

Over the past decade, we’ve seen plenty of evidence to suggest that a pair of 160s is often enough to make your test score a non-issue at top-tier MBA programs. For example, in a recent data release, Michigan, Cornell, and UCLA’s MBA cohorts all had average GRE® verbal scores of 162 and average quant scores of 159; Duke’s averages were 160 on both the quant and verbal GRE® sections. (Class-profile averages move a bit each cycle, so treat these figures as illustrative rather than current.) That’s certainly not conclusive, but it suggests that MBA admissions committees might be using 160 as a loose GRE® benchmark score, regardless of what the percentiles might tell us.

In other words, if you’re applying to an MBA program with a GRE® score, you probably don’t need to convert that number into a GMAT score at all. Instead, a very general rule of thumb is that a 160 on both GRE® sections will often be viewed as a “good” GRE® score, and that’s enough for MBA programs to move on to other elements of your candidacy.

Wait, Wasn’t There a GRE®-GMAT Score Conversion Chart…?

Yes, there was. ETS, the organization that administers the GRE®, published a GRE®-GMAT score conversion tool in the early 2010s, as part of a broader effort to encourage MBA applicants to take the GRE®.

From the very start, that tool was on shaky ground. For starters, the two exams are designed for very different purposes, and they have always covered significantly different content; that’s even more true after the GMAT’s overhaul in late 2023, when Data Insights was added and geometry was removed. The two exams are also targeted towards very different pools of candidates, as we discussed earlier.

For both those reasons and for a number of more technical reasons (explained in detail here by Chris Han, who is one of the smartest guys you’ll ever meet), there was never much validity to the GRE®-GMAT score conversion tool. And once the GMAT overhauled its format, ETS mercifully removed the tool from its website.

So we’re left with just two GRE®-GMAT conversion “tools”: percentiles, and the 160 sniff-test.

Which GRE®-GMAT Score Conversion Method Should You Use?

So, which of these methods is the most useful for understanding your test scores? If you’re not sure how to evaluate your scores, the best path forward is to:

1. Ask the admissions office at your preferred MBA program how they compare GMAT scores to GRE® scores. Some programs do focus on percentiles when they compare GRE® and GMAT scores, while others don’t. The easiest way to find out is to ask!
2. Check out the median test scores at your target MBA programs to compare who actually gets in. That should give you a sense of how your GRE® or GMAT scores stack up against those of your fellow MBA applicants.