GMAT Validity

Validity refers to how well the GMAT exam does what it is intended to do—predict students’ academic performance in the core courses of a graduate management or business program.

The GMAT is the first and only test designed to predict student performance in business school, and it does so more reliably than any other known measure, including the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and other standardized assessments. For 50 years, GMAC has maintained the reputation of the GMAT exam as the best assessment for business school admissions by continually studying the performance of test scores as a predictor of academic performance to ensure the test’s validity.

For the GMAT exam, validity is measured as the relationship between scores on the test and the outcome it is intended to predict—first-year or midprogram grades in a graduate management program.

The GMAT exam is the best individual predictor of graduate management grades, better even then undergraduate GPA, but the best prediction results from combining GMAT scores with undergraduate grades. On a scale ranging from 0.00 to 1.00, the validity of the GMAT as a predictor of midprogram grades is 0.53. A validity range of 0.30 to 0.40 is generally considered good for standardized admissions tests, making the GMAT an outstanding predictor. The validity of the GMAT exam averaged over hundreds of validity studies is 0.48.

Although either GMAT Verbal or GMAT Quantitative scores may be more effective predictors for a single program, on average, scores from both these sections of the GMAT predict equally well.

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