What Is a Better Predictor of Success in an MBA Program: Work Experience or the GMAT?

ABSTRACT The goal of this study was to determine if work experience might be a better predictor of success than a GMAT score by examining how successful students have been in an MBA program in a suburban metropolitan university. Success in the MBA program was measured by overall GPA for students completing the program. The study also examined the benefits of offering a GMAT Waiver to individuals with significant and leadership experience. Other characteristics, such as age, gender, race, undergraduate GPA and undergraduate upper division GPA were also studied. Preliminary results indicated that significant leadership and administrative work experience were a better predictor than GMAT scores in predicting the overall success of students enrolled in an MBA program. There appeared to be very little correlation between GMAT scores and the overall GPA that students received in the program. The study should be beneficial to universities considering the criteria on which to place the most emphasis when making admissions decisions. Included in the paper will be a discussion of alternatives to offering the GMAT. (ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.) REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE In a part-time program such as the one being studied in this paper, students are often older and have more significant leadership and management work experience than students admitted to a traditional MBA program. To maximize the number of admittances and improve the retention and graduation rates, it is important that those involved with the administration of MBA programs understand the likely predictors of graduate student performance to be able to make quality admission choices (Sulaiman and Mohezar, 2006). More and more schools have recognized that the GMAT, including the GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), should be waived for individuals with significant work experience (Braunstein, 2009). Fish and Wilson (2009) indicated that there also are other differences in factors, such as age, in predicting graduate performance in a part-time MBA compared to a one-year MBA program. This should be of particular interest to Clayton State University (CSU), because its 20 month is geared towards working professionals. Sulaiman and Mohezar (2006) stated that the majority of graduate department admission committees compare total work experience and undergraduate GPA when making an admittance decision. The article by Sulaiman and Mohezar (2006) gave six hypotheses, one of which stated: "H1 : Work experience will predict student performance." They concluded that, "Those with longer previous work experience may more readily see the relevance of the management concepts taught. Thus, they would likely perform better than those with less work experience". Some leading schools, such as Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, now base their enrollment on undergraduate academic records and work experience (Jones, 2005). As Kellogg' s Julie Jones indicated in a 2005 Business Week article, it does not make a lot of sense to require the Chief Financial Officer of an organization, who had an undergraduate GPA of 3.7 as an accounting major, to take the GMAT. Jones (2005) added that Kellogg places a major emphasis on the value and range of work experience that applicants can bring to the program. Many executive MBA programs now waive the GMAT exam (Gloeckler, 2005). In fact, in 2005, only 12 of Business Week's top 25 MBA programs required the GMAT. About one-third of the applicants for the North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School opted for a GMAT waiver instead of taking the GMAT (Gloeckler, 2005). Among the issues that need to be addressed are the standards for granting a GMAT waiver (i.e., not requiring the GMAT) and the requirement of the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) when a GMAT waiver is granted. In an MBA program for working professionals, such as the one at CSU, work experience might be a better predictor of success in the MBA program than the GMAT score or undergraduate work experience (Adams, 2000). …