In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts tackle how a significant change in the GMAT — the recent removal of a writing section — is occurring at just about the worst time possible, thanks to the rise of AI writing tools like ChatGPT, is prompting schools like Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan to potentially require a separate writing assessment. GMAC, under criticism, seems to be scrambling to introduce an additional writing test—not yet available for registration, but presumably a simple resurrection of the previous “A.W.A.” (Analytical Writing Assessment) —reacting to feedback from some MBA programs that the current GMAT doesn’t meet their needs.

Caroline points out the poor timing of the change, coinciding with the rise of AI, complicating the admissions process. Maria sympathizes with GMAC’s predicament, noting the increased complexity for test-takers who must now potentially pay extra for the new writing component, advocating for it to be included free with the GMAT (and perhaps added back to the GMAT in the future). The discussion highlights the evolving landscape of business school testing and the unexpected consequences of technology on how business school admissions officers assess an applicant’s written communication skills.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.440] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual with my co host, Caroline Diarte Edwards, who is a co founder of Fortuna Admissions, and Maria Wich-Vila, who’s the founder of Applicant Lab. Guess what, folks, there’s a big oops out there for all you test takers who have to deal with the GMAT. That is the new, shorter GMAT, which is the only GMAT that’s available. It turns out that some schools would, in fact, prefer to see a writing requirement on the test. After all, with the advent of ChatGPT, admissions officials want to see if you can write. And GMAT, in their great wisdom, actually reduced the test by nearly an hour, but eliminated the writing assessment GRE, and their shorter test retained a writing assessment sample, even though they shortened it. And, you know, when these tests came out, we made note of the fact that GRE may have made the better decision in retaining that writing element, and it turns out that is true. The big discovery is Harvard business school is requiring this additional 30 minutes writing assessment of people who submit a GMAT score. And this came out of the blue.

[00:01:34.770] – John

You can’t even register. Can you believe this? You can’t even register yet to take this writing assessment from the GMAT. Caroline, what do you make of this?

[00:01:45.220] – Caroline

Well, it does look like GMAC is now scrambling to address the issue of the lack of the writing assessment. And we discussed before that they really took that out at the wrong time. Right. Because in the past, I don’t think schools took much notice of the writing portion of the tests. We certainly didn’t when I was at INSEAD. And it was, you know, pretty much disregarded in the evaluation of the GMAT in the past. So I can understand why they were thinking, well, this isn’t a really useful part of the test. The schools aren’t using it very much. So we can take that out, and then we’ll have a shorter test, and everyone will like the test so much more. The problem is that they did it at precisely the wrong time. Right. So they did that just as AI was penetrating the market. And now schools actually do want people to have to take a writing test like that because they want to see if people can effectively express themselves in a spontaneous context where they don’t have tools to help them, like aih. So they really took it out at the wrong time.

[00:02:51.470] – Caroline

And the fact that schools are already saying that you’re going to have to take this test, but the test is not yet available suggests that it’s been a mad scramble for them to get this off the ground. And probably it’s a result of the schools providing feedback to GMAT that their new test wasn’t going to be sufficient for their needs. So we’ve seen, as you said, so HBS is saying that anyone who applies to the school with GMAT focus will have to take the writing test if they get invited to interview. So you don’t have to take it when you submit your application, but you will have to take it by the time before you will get admitted. If you get to interview stage, then they’re not going to admit you until you’ve taken that test. And then MIT has also announced that they will be asking people to take the writing assessment as well. Although MIT says that they may require. So it’s not obligatory, but they may require candidates to take that test. And again, it will be at interview stage.

[00:03:56.310] – John

Well, Maria, this suggests that people should just avoid the GMAT and just go with the GRE. I mean, really, right?

[00:04:03.780] – Maria

Oh, I feel so bad for the people at GMAC. I really, I really do, because I could see you can completely understand the logic. Right. As Caroline said, the, you know, the analytical writing assessment was the thing that people were like, don’t worry about it. No one pays attention to it anyway. And so they probably thought they were making their test more popular for candidates in their. In their sadly ever losing battle in market share against the GRE. And unfortunately, in the advent of AI, now the schools actually want to see timed writing assessments done in a controlled environment. And so, yeah, I just feel, feel I’ve already been recommending the GRE over the new GMAT for completely other reasons. And so now this is just one more. Just one more reason. I mean, the only small mercy here, I suppose, is that at least it’s something that you do after you do the rest of the test. So what little cognitive friction or mental energy you would have spent doing the writing part of the test before, at least now you do it later. So presumably you could be fresher instead of having to, you know, do this marathon use of your brain, having your brain do all kinds of different things within a two or three hour period.

[00:05:23.370] – Maria

So I guess that’s the one small mercy. I do think it’s interesting that on the, at least the preliminary site about this writing assessment, it does appear that GMAC would be charging something. I think it was like $30. That, to me, feels like a bit of. A bit of a misstep. I think they should offer it for free for anyone who took the GMAT focus edition, because it seems like the GMAT focus edition is a little too focused. And that’s not the candidate’s fault. That was something that GMAT should have either rapidly reintroduced the writing assessment back to the test, but since it sort of seems like they’re doing this at the behest of the schools, it feels like why should the candidate now have to pay an extra $30 for something that should have been included in the first place? So perhaps, hopefully, they will at least get rid of that fee.

[00:06:08.660] – John

So you pay the $275 to take the focus edition, and then you gotta pay another $30 to take the writing assessment. So now the test is over $300, essentially, for what had been a test that was, I think it was at 250, and it’s a shorter test, but not by a whole lot. Wow. The other interesting thing here is that GMAC did not develop this test in a vacuum. It came out of a lot of consultation with business schools. So it’s sort of surprising that Harvard, and possibly MIT, may now require it. It suggests to me that Harvard wasn’t consulted, that other schools were, and they found that essentially they didn’t really use the analytical writing assessment to begin with, so they just scrapped it. And it’s unfortunate that they scrapped it at a time when everyone is using ChatGPT, particularly people who would apply to a business school. And the scoring on this is, how does the scoring work?

[00:07:18.420] – Caroline

So it’s a scale from zero to six, I think, which is the same as the old Awa. And I think perhaps what happened, John, is probably GMAT did consult with the schools, but I imagine it was pre AI when they were going through that consultation process. I think that probably they were working on GMAT focus for quite a long time. It’s not something that they could have cooked up overnight, and they don’t introduce these changes very quickly. So I imagine it was probably a multi year process, and perhaps they did the consultation at a time when no one was thinking about AI. So it may be that it was just a long process and they didn’t continue to involve the schools throughout. And they sort of relied on feedback that they got from the schools perhaps three years ago when AI wasn’t on people’s radar screen.

[00:08:14.250] – John

So I’m thinking, okay, if you’re taking a TOEFL, because English is a second language, you may as well take the writing assessment, because, you know this is going to be an issue, particularly for people who are taking and submitting a TOEFL. Right, Maria?

[00:08:29.010] – Maria

Yeah. And I believe that that is something that does satisfy the writing requirement for HBS, if I’m not mistaken. So it’s not like this is the only way to do it. My understanding is that there are other ways to demonstrate that writing fluency. And so I believe that there may be. If you do a writing assessment with another, like an english language test, for example. If the language of your undergraduate education was not English, for example, you might have to take something like the TOEFL. So I believe that that could serve as a suitable substitute.

[00:09:02.220] – John

Now, do we know if the writing assessment can be done at home, or do you have to go to a testing center?

[00:09:07.790] – Maria

I would assume you can do it at home.

[00:09:09.470] – Caroline

Yeah, I believe that it says that there’s an online option.

[00:09:12.550] – John

Okay.

[00:09:13.560] – Caroline

And I would imagine what they will do in future is when people register for the GMAT focus, you’ll have the option to register at the same time for the writing test. And it would be wise if they just included on the registration page information about which schools are going to, you know, may ask candidates for the writing test so that people just get it done at the same time. Some candidates may prefer to just take both tests at once rather than taking the GMAT focus. And then a month or two later, signing up for the next test might be better to just get it all out the way at the same time.

[00:09:50.010] – John

Wow. Now, Maria, when you say you’ve been recommending to your clients that they take the GRE instead of the GMAT, but for other reasons, what are your other reasons? I’m curious.

[00:10:01.810] – Maria

I just think the GMAT focus, I’ve heard from friends who are test prep folks that the GMAT focus is a shorter test but a harder test. So they’ve packed more difficult types of things into that test. I also feel like the grading scale is not a well enough known entity yet. And I’ve often found, anecdotally over the years, that there’s been a lot more, not freedom, but there’s been more leeway if someone applies with a GRE score. Because I think for decades, you know, everyone, everyone could immediately tell you off the top of their heads, like, oh, yeah, the average GMATs at these top schools is 730. But if you were to say to them, what’s the average GRE score? They might not know. I mean, now that the GRE is taking more and more market share, it is becoming, you know, you’re starting to learn, like, oh, the averages at HBS are 163, but even then, that intuition is still not quite there. And so I think that, you know, and even when you would go, let’s say in the past to the us news and world report rankings. They would put right there on the page, here’s the name of the school, here’s its ranking, and here’s the average.

[00:11:05.340] – Maria

GMAT was one of the main things, and then they would kind of bury the GRE score. So for all of those reasons, I felt that the GRE, unless, you know, you’re just gonna rock the GMAT, because it’s just, you love standardized tests. I recommended that if anyone is sort of feeling a little insecure about their test taking skills, I would always recommend the GRE instead, in general. And then the fact that my friends who are test prep providers, they’re like, this is great for us as test prep providers, but it’s not so great for folks who are test averse.

[00:11:39.020] – John

Caroline, are you going to have a similar recommendation to your clients?

[00:11:42.920] – Caroline

Well, it’s very interesting. I mean, a lot of my clients that have already taken the test are already some way down the road with their test prep by the time I start working with them or I speak with them. I think if you’ve already sort of started down the path of the GMAT, then you might lose time to then switch tests. But for clients where they’re really struggling with the GMAT and they’ve taken the test, and they’re clearly not where they need to be, given the scores that they’re targeting, then I do encourage them to try a practice GRE and just see if they do better. But I think if you’re at the start of the process, it can be great to take both tests. Right? Take a practice test for both and then see how you do and if you’re better suited to one than the other. But, yeah, it does seem like the GMAT focus. There’s just a lot of unknown factors at the moment. Given that there’s not much of a track record, fewer test prep materials, and then, you know, it’ll take us a year or two to see whether the percentiles are shifting as a result.

[00:12:48.440] – Caroline

If the test is harder, then. Then perhaps the percentiles that you need to get into the top scores will shift a bit. The schools will have to adjust, but we don’t know whether that’s going to be the case. And it could be risky for candidates to apply with lower scores when you match them across to the old GMAT.

[00:13:12.830] – John

Right. So it seems like this could even be a bigger surprise for applicants to HBS, then the change to the new three short essay questions, which Suzy Welch has that are ridiculously vague, nebulous, and what was the word she used? You’ll have to look it up in the article.

[00:13:39.950] – Caroline

I did enjoy listening to her rant, and I think she’s right that, well, she commented that it sounded like it was something that had been cooked up by a committee and perhaps too many cooks in the broth with those questions. Too many cooks in, you know, spoiling the broth with, with those questions. So.

[00:13:58.600] – John

Which we kind of thought of too, when we reviewed the questions, didn’t we? We suggested the same. I mean, it’s almost inevitable that a bunch of people got into a room and, you know, this one compromise after another. Everyone thinks they have a better idea, and what comes out is a really lousy idea.

[00:14:21.980] – Maria

I appreciated that she said that she wasn’t sure exactly where she would start as an applicant if she had to answer these questions. And I felt the same way. Like, at least with the open ended one, you could say, well, here’s what I want you to focus on about me instead of this very prescribed, like, well, I don’t know. And so then it just invites a lack of genuine authenticity. Because if now I have to pretend that my greatest accomplishment was actually the result of me being curious, as opposed to me having to just be like, hey, here’s something cool that I did, but now I have to twist it into this curiosity paradigm. It’s just annoying.

[00:14:55.410] – John

And Caroline, you mentioned that a number of your colleagues who are helping people apply to Harvard in round one are equally perplexed about, okay, what’s the right approach and what do you really say and how do you make an impact with these questions? Right.

[00:15:12.840] – Caroline

Yes, I think they are missing the old question, which just gave much more scope for creativity and to tell a personal story. These questions are quite narrow. They’re also multi part questions. So you’re trying to hit all of the different components of the question. And the word counts are extremely short. So it is a challenging exercise for sure, and I suspect will give rise to some responses that are just a less interesting read than the HBS essay in previous years.

[00:15:48.350] – John

So what’s the bigger surprise? The fact that they changed their essay and went to three short ones, or the fact that, lo and behold, in the fine print of the application, and I mean the fine print, you now have to do a writing assessment if you have the privilege of being invited to interview?

[00:16:06.190] – Caroline

Well, I think the essays are going to affect more candidates, right? That affects everybody, whereas the writing assessment, it will affect a subset of candidates. So I think that’s going to be a bigger headache for the majority.

[00:16:20.350] – John

Yeah. And I do think, however, that maybe some people are going to hedge their bets. Right. Because if MIT is now saying, you may, we may require it, who knows how many other schools, once the. The news gets out. And we’ll get the news out, of course, today. But this is a new requirement. We’ll follow suit. Maria, you think other schools might follow suit after this?

[00:16:45.290] – Maria

Yes, I do. And I don’t blame them. Right. If we want to make sure that we’re hearing someone’s authentic communication skills, then why wouldn’t you require this as well? But I guess the silver lining is now when people don’t get invited to the HBS interview, we can console them with, hey, the good news is you’d.

[00:17:07.120] – John

Have to spend $30 more for a half hour.

[00:17:10.110] – Maria

Yeah, let’s. Let’s try to put a positive spit on what is otherwise very disappointing news.

[00:17:16.250] – John

Yeah. I mean, you. You got to know that within six months to a year, the writing assessment will reoccur on the focus edition of the GMAT. It has to. Because GMAT is now no longer cleanly competitive with the GRE, they put themselves in a non competitive situation here, again, which is sad, I agree, you know, because I think there are a lot of people who still believe the GMAT is a better test because it is business school specific. And the scoring, because it’s business school specific is more uniform for that applicant pool, where you have people, you know, applying to master’s degrees in philosophy, geography, political science and whatnot with the GRE. So the scores across the applicant pool are somewhat altered, and that means the percentile scores are altered so you don’t get a full, complete read, as you would with a GMAT score if you’re an admissions official. So this is just like, wow, how could this even happen? It’s just, like, stunning to me. Really. You would think that. And, you know, the fact that Harvard’s not requiring it unless you’re interviewed, here’s what it tells me. Of course Harvard would have required it.

[00:18:41.060] – John

The only reason they’re not requiring it is because GMAC can’t get its act together to have people actually take it and register for the test in time to submit your score by round one deadline date, which is only around the corner in early September. I mean, you got to know that’s why Harvard, trying to be somewhat nice to GMAC, has probably just done this this way to allow GMAC the time to actually be able to put up the form to allow people to register for the darn test, which is even all the more aggravating. Wow.

[00:19:20.330] – Caroline

It’s also a surprise for candidates, right? I mean, it’s kind of late in the day in the season to bring on people that you’ll probably have another test to take, because most people, many people applying for the round one deadlines have already taken their tests, right. And they thought they were done and dusted, but then they have been.

[00:19:38.500] – John

Exactly.

[00:19:39.940] – Caroline

It pops up.

[00:19:41.440] – John

Okay, so here’s the thing. Harvard waits nearly a month later than it normally does to post its deadlines. Then Harvard waits another three weeks to tell you what questions they’re going to ask. And now Harvard is saying, okay, well, if you do get an interview invite, now you’re going to go back and you’re going to do another test and you’re going to pay for it. Nice. Now, you got to also think that if Harvard is serious about looking at this score among those who’ve been interviewed, that it’s going to have to invite more people than it traditionally does to be interviewed. Right. Because obviously they’re going to. In other words, they’re going to cancel out the portion of the applicant pool that has been interviewed because of this writing assessment. So therefore, they’re going to have to invite more people to get the same odds as they would have normally. Wouldn’t that be logical, a logical conclusion?

[00:20:40.930] – Caroline

Well, it could be. It depends how many people they think they’ll be weeding out as a result of the tests on the business writing assessment. I would imagine that most people who they invite to interview are probably strong enough that they can get a decent score in that exercise. So I would be surprised if many people get dinged post interview purely on the basis of that exercise.

[00:21:05.820] – John

That brings me to whole other question. Why even bother to require it? Right?

[00:21:10.660] – Caroline

Right. Yeah, I think that it’s, you know, they’re looking to cross check people’s skills and, yeah, they may need to leave some room for weeding some people out, but they have a pretty, pretty comfortable pool to draw from, I think. So I don’t think it’ll be too difficult.

[00:21:33.090] – John

Now, Maria, with your Harvard MBA, you know, the Harvard business School mindset, is there anything else that we haven’t covered as to why this would have occurred?

[00:21:43.900] – Maria

No, I think it’s just a matter of. Because of ChatGPT, it’s even less. There’s always been editors that might craft your essay and massage some of your voice out of it. But now the ChatGPT phenomenon just brings it to a completely new level. And so to the extent that trying to ascertain someone’s genuine, authentic communication strengths in a timed and controlled environment, it just becomes more important than it was before. And so I think that it ultimately comes down to just authenticity. And how strong of a communicator are you when you can’t necessarily rely on a tool? Or where you don’t have three whole months to work on some short essays right, where you have under time pressure. So that’s what I think it ultimately comes down to, is authenticity. But I agree with Caroline. I would be very surprised if, like a lot of people, if this suddenly unearths a ton of people who, you know, their essays were flawless, and then they can’t put two sentences together in the time writing assessment, that would be really shocking because, you know, the schools also have, you know, your transcripts, your undergraduate transcripts and what have you, so.

[00:22:56.310] – Maria

But it might weed out a few people so much. So much the better. But, yeah, what a mess.

[00:23:05.170] – John

Yeah. So here’s how they describe it. This is GMAT. Within a 30 minutes timeframe, you will be tasked with analyzing a brief argument rather than sharing your personal perspective. The objective is to critique the argument’s reasoning and evidence objectively and cohesively. A well structured, persuasive response will demonstrate to schools that you have the logical reasoning and communication skills necessary to succeed in the classroom and beyond. The results would be sent to you within three to five days. They’re claiming the prep time for this is two to 6 hours for the assessment. You can send your result to as many schools as you want at no additional charge. Big deal. They’re charging you $30 for a test that once was included in the GMAT. They’re saying it’s being going to be delivered online and available year round to take it home at any time, which almost suggests that they aren’t going to give this test in a test center. So there you have it. If you want to look this up and you can’t register for it, which is also frustrating because GMAC hasn’t put the registration page on its site. It’s called the GMAC business writing assessment.

[00:24:28.460] – John

All right, well, I mean, I guess if you’re invited to an interview at Harvard, maybe, you know, you don’t. You might not like it, but you’re not going to mind it because you’re going to be so happy getting that invite that you’ll say, yeah, $30 more, another 30 minutes, what the heck? You know, if it’s just one more hurdle I have to overcome and jump before I can get to Harvard. Hmm. You know, I think I can deal. What do you think? Right?

[00:25:02.450] – Maria

I would hope so.

[00:25:03.390] – John

Yeah, I would hope so, too. All right. There you have it. We think more schools are going to, going to ask for this. We think it probably will be included in the new focus edition soon. Incidentally, you know, GMAT intends to eliminate that brain branding on the test, which is what they told people at the GMAC annual conference in New Orleans. Don’t know when they’re going to do that. Probably when they add back the writing assessment. And, or you may want to follow Maria’s advice, take the GRE and avoid all this. And until GMAT cleans it up. Anyway, thanks for listening. Good luck to you. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants.