Does the gmat matter? The impact of a GMAT waiver policy on mba student performance

The purpose of this research was to determine if the GMAT actually mattered for MBA student performance. A waiver option was recently instituted in our MBA program based on GPA and/or professional experience, providing the ability to compare group differences (GMAT vs non-GMAT students) on several relevant outcome variables, including: (1) graduate GPA, (2) a managerial in-basket assessing managerial competencies, and (3) the MBA ETS, a standardized measure of knowledge of MBA program content. Results revealed that there were no differences in scores on the outcomes measures between groups, questioning the validity of the GMAT as a selection tool, particularly for students with high GPAs and/or significant work experience.