The latest episode of Poets & Quants’ “Business Casual” podcast dives into the GMAT’s intriguing new “Superscore” concept. Hosts Pola Lem, Maria Wich-Vila, and Caroline Diarte Edwards discuss how this change might impact MBA applicants. The Superscore allows candidates to combine their best scores from different test sittings, potentially easing score anxiety and encouraging more attempts. Pola likens it to the SAT and ACT practices, while Caroline and Maria generally view it as a positive development for candidates who may have had an off day during one section of their exam.

One key insight is the implication for test-takers: the Superscore may incentivize applicants to retake the GMAT, focusing on improving individual sections rather than stressing over achieving a balanced score in one sitting. Maria points out that this might lead to increased test attempts, as candidates become more strategic in optimizing their scores. From a business perspective, this move could be GMAC’s strategy to boost test volume and remain competitive, especially considering recent declines.

For MBA applicants, this development offers more flexibility and a chance to present their best possible score. However, it also raises the question of whether schools will embrace the Superscore approach or maintain a preference for single attempt scores. As Pola, Maria, and Caroline explore, understanding each school’s stance on Superscores will be crucial for applicants planning their test strategies.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:03] – Pola

Hello everyone. I’m Pola Lem with Poets and Quants, and welcome to our weekly podcast, Business Casual. I’m joined by my co-hosts, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Maria, as you know, is the founder of ApplicantLab, and Caroline, of course, was head of admissions for INSEAD and is co-founder of Fortuna Admissions. So, I’m joining you today from London, and I’m really, really glad to be back. Not that France is a horrible place, but Paris last week was hot. Really, really hot. And Maria is still wandering the globe, comes to us this week from New York, and Caroline joins us from sunny California. Is that right?

[00:00:51] – Caroline

Yeah, I’m still here in the Bay Area.

[00:00:54] – Pola

Great. So we will be talking today about GMAT Super Scores, and I feel like we kind of need to do a little bit of a trumpeting sound here, like the GMAT Super Score.

[00:01:11] – Caroline

Um, does sound good.

[00:01:14] – Pola

I, I mean, I had to, I just had to. But, uh, so basically these are the aggregate best scores of your GMAT test if you sat the test multiple times. And as a reminder, I think everyone listening will know this, but, uh, the GMAT is the dominant assessment in the field and it’s accepted by more than 7,500 programs and upwards of 2,400 business schools worldwide. For a second there, I was going to say 24,000, but that’s far too many business schools. So these super scores are set to launch in early August, and this tool will basically appear in candidates’, uh, accounts and on their official score reports, which get sent to schools. So basically, if you’re a candidate, your strongest verbal score from one sitting can be paired with, say, your strongest quant score from another, producing a higher overall result than a single test date would get you. But before we talk more deeply about this and what it means, I just want to quickly describe how it looks for our listeners. So on their site, GMAC, the body behind GMAT, has this nifty little mock-up of the superscore on paper. So basically, it’s, it’s like this new section above, uh, your test dates with the overall score.

[00:02:42] – Pola

And the comparison’s been made, and it feels a lot to me like what the SAT and the ACT have done for ages in undergraduate admissions. So GMAC says it’s introducing the Super Score to allay score anxiety. So they say this is, quote, one of the most significant challenges keeping qualified candidates from sending their scores. That ties in nicely to what we were talking about last week, which is waivers offered by some business schools. So the option to basically opt out of taking these tests. But if we look at this as a business move, it’s worth noting that GMAT is facing something of an existential crisis. So in 2025, its test volumes fell by 19%. So that’s quite significant. All right, that’s enough intro from me. So to kick off our discussion, can I just get from each of you a one-word answer? No nuance just yet. GMAT superscore, good or bad? Caroline? Good.

[00:03:55] – Caroline

Why not?

[00:03:57] – Pola

Maria?

[00:03:58] – Maria

Good. Sure.

[00:04:02] – Pola

Okay, that felt—

[00:04:03] – Maria

I know this was not— that was more than one word. Sorry, we both broke the rules, but You did.

[00:04:07] – Pola

I was thinking that. I wasn’t gonna say it.

[00:04:10] – Caroline

So I think it was an unbounded enthusiasm from, from Ida.

[00:04:15] – Pola

So, um, I mean, I’ve already kind of made that cynical note that this is a clever move for GMAC. They’re giving candidates this incentive to take the test more times, i.e., they get to cash in more fees. What do you make of that, Maria, in light of the overall good answer that you gave?

[00:04:33] – Maria

Yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s good for candidates who maybe had an off day on one of the sections on one of the tests, uh, but I think it’s mostly good for GMAC in that I think it encourages people to keep trying with the sense of, well, you know, maybe if I just focus on getting a little bit higher score in the verbal or a little bit higher score in the quant, that will in some way benefit the superscore, as opposed to having the pressure of, okay, if I do a retake now both of my sections need to be just as strong, if not stronger, to merit the retake. Now with the superscore, I can rationalize retaking because I think to myself, well, as long as I do better on one of the 2 sections, my superscore overall will be enhanced. So I think the ultimate winner in this would be GMAC, if anyone, because I think it’s, it’s going to encourage more people to take more tests. Uh, and I also believe, and this is a little bit more of a nuance, but I think I saw somewhere that they said that That superscore would only appear in the official score result.

[00:05:31] – Maria

I think frequently sometimes candidates will download an unofficial score report and send it with their application, and the official score reports, you get 5 of them for free, but then if you want extra ones sent at different times, you have to pay extra for those. You know, on the grand scheme of things, I think it’s $35 per score report on a $250 test. So it’s— we’re not talking about a major financial hurdle. But I, if that’s the case, that it only appears in the official score report, now I might have to find myself, if, if my superscore does make me look better, then I might need to pay for that extra official report to be sent. But those are mechanics that I don’t actually, I’m just guessing.

[00:06:12] – Caroline

Hmm.

[00:06:13] – Pola

Yeah. And Caroline, I mean, I, I welcome any, any thoughts you have on, on that and, and, you know, the, the good writing from you, but also, can you give us some examples of how this is used in admissions kind of on the school end of things?

[00:06:32] – Caroline

Yeah, so I think it’s important for candidates to keep in mind that this is not really going to change how schools evaluate your GMAT score. So it’s more a matter of presentation, and I think it will be a boost to some candidates, and at least in their confidence when they submit their score report. And I think, you know, that was one of the reasons that GMAC gave for making this move is that candidates are concerned about their test and their testing history, and this is a nice way of packaging a test report where you’ve taken multiple tests and maybe you’ve done well in the quant one day, you’ve done better on the verbal in another test, and so it packages it all together nicely and makes your score look better than it actually was. So this isn’t going to fool schools. And so in practice, schools do in any case look across your history of test-taking. And I’ve always encouraged candidates, if you have, for example, done really well in the quant on one test and not so well on the verbal or data insights, and then scored better on the other sections in another test, I have always advised them to submit both of those tests, right?

[00:07:48] – Caroline

Because you can choose which tests you submit to the schools. Because the schools do look across the history, they’re not just looking at the headline number, they are looking at the breakdown. And so they have, if you’ve submitted multiple tests, they are looking at your history of test-taking and whether you’ve managed to reach a certain threshold in the quant and in the verbal and in data insights. So although they wouldn’t call it superscoring, they are still taking that holistic perspective into account of your full test-taking history. And so, for example, at INSEAD, we like to see a minimum threshold of around 75th percentile on each section of the test. And if a candidate had not reached that threshold on one test, in one section, but they hadn’t reached it on another test in that section, then it would give us some reassurance that they had that ability. All right, because you’re looking to just— you’re looking to the GMAT to check that they have the academic ability required to flourish in the program. And schools also particularly look at the quantitative score because there is a correlation, a strong correlation between how people do on that quantitative section and then how people do on the quantitative core courses on an MBA program.

[00:09:16] – Caroline

So I would say that there’s a bit more weight given to that part of the test. So having that, so presenting that breakdown has always been useful. So schools are very aware of how that breakdown works and they are not going to now look at the SuperScore and assess the candidate’s academic background any differently. So whilst it may give more confidence to candidates, I think there’s also a risk that candidates Think, okay, I can just like ace the quant on one test and I’ll ace the verbal on another, and then I’ll ace data insights in another, and that’s going to give me a fantastic super score. But their actual individual test results don’t have such a good total. And what you need to keep in mind is that schools still like to see a strong total, right? So while they will look at the breakdown. on the margins, if they’re choosing between 2 different candidates, and of course it never just comes down to the GMAT, but it does look more impressive to get that strong score in one sitting because it shows that you are able to handle the pressure across that sustained length of time in the test and do well in one sitting.

[00:10:32] – Caroline

And so it does show a marginal— there is a marginal benefit to having a strong test results in one sitting. And so, and also something to keep in mind is that schools have to use one single sitting for the reporting, so they can’t use the superscores in their reporting of their average GMAT scores on the program, for example. So there is a limit to the benefit of the superscore, and candidates just need to be aware that They should not be taking the test with a strategy of just maximizing their superscore. They still need to keep their total score in mind because that will carry greater weight ultimately in the admissions process. And that is what the school will need to report as, as the GMAT score that then feeds into the class averages. It feeds into rankings and so on.

[00:11:24] – Pola

Okay. So don’t get too complacent knowing that you can have the best scores put into that top-line superscore.

[00:11:33] – Caroline

Yeah.

[00:11:33] – Pola

And so just to argue devil’s advocate for a little bit, I hope you will anyway, Maria. You know, the other person here, counselor, is, you know, does it in a way, does it show schools that candidates maybe have more grit if they’re willing? I mean, provided they’re not bombing sections left and right, um, does it, does it show schools that, you know, this is a person who’s willing to take this test like 4 times over?

[00:12:10] – Maria

I— yes, look, I’ve, I’ve heard that theory presented many times that, well, at least if you, if you’ve taken it multiple times, you show that you have, uh, tenacity. But I think Caroline is spot on that All else being equal, you’re much better off, it’s much more impressive to just do really well once or maybe the second time after a certain point. Yeah, so I’m going to play devil’s advocate against the devil’s advocate. My whole thing when people are like, oh, but if I take it again, it’ll show tenacity, I ask myself, well, why didn’t you prepare this hard the first time around? Like, I start to question someone’s judgment. Did they not take it seriously the first time? Did they not realize that this test is hard? Did they not study in advance? So I, for me, if I, if someone says like, well, I took it and I got a really low score, so I’m gonna retake and show them how hard I work. I’m like, well, but ideally you would’ve worked that hard the first time, right? So I, I mean, look, it’s better than nothing as long as whatever it takes for you to get to that score where your candidacy will at least be given a more of a serious consideration, then great, go for it.

[00:13:11] – Maria

If you take it 3 or 4 times, um, although I do think that studies show that after about the 3rd or 4th time, there’s almost never a meaningful improvement. Um, so yeah, so go ahead and take it. But, you know, I, I was relieved to hear Caroline say something that I had been— I had been a little concerned, and I, I was not actually thinking that any, uh, adcom would fall for this superscore, uh, shenanigan. Because, you know, it would be so easy for someone to only study for one section, show up, take that section, take a nap for the rest of it, uh, and then ace it, and then do the same thing with another section a month later. So You know, I, I, I do think that some people out there who may not be thinking strategically, they might be tempted to do that to try to game things. Um, so I, I hope that the schools, if they are going to comment on this, they do sort of indicate that, look, it’s, it’s great, it’s a data point, but we’re already mentally superscoring kind of in our heads, and we’re going to look at the whole picture.

[00:14:12] – Maria

I was also relieved to see that you cannot simply send your superscore and nothing else. It accompanies your other score reports. Um, so you cannot in fact game it because part of what makes the test difficult is not just the content on it, but it is the speed and the endurance that it’s testing as well. Um, so if a bunch of people suddenly only take half of the test, it’s not fair, uh, to everyone else. So I don’t know, net-net, it’s fine if it helps some people look a little bit better at first glance. Wonderful. Uh, but I do think that admissions officers are not that I think that they’re a bit more savvy than perhaps some candidates give them credit for. And so I don’t think that they will be fooled by an amazing superscore but lousy individual tests.

[00:14:57] – Pola

Yeah, I mean, you’ve kind of made me think of a related theoretical question here, which is, you know, why couldn’t GMAC simply structure the test so that it comes in 3 different sections which you take each on a separate day. I mean, would that really be testing, um, without that? Would it not have enough rigor? You know, Caroline, in, in some universe where this were 3 separate tests, do you think that that wouldn’t actually gauge candidates’ skills as well?

[00:15:36] – Caroline

Well, I think there’s an element of stamina to be able to get through the full test in one sitting is a bit different from taking it in separate sections. So it’s quite a long test. I can’t remember the exact duration now. It’s like 2 and a half hours or something. So it does take some stamina to prepare, both prepare for that and then sit the test. And if you break it down, then I think schools might have some concern about people’s attention spans and ability to focus for a sufficient duration of time. So I think schools probably prefer to see a bundled test rather than separated out into individual sections. And I would also add that I believe that Harvard— so some schools, Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia, we’ve seen have put on the websites that they do not superscore. So I don’t know if that’s something that they’ve added recently in the light of this policy, or if that’s something they already had on the website. But I think that they just wanted to spell out that the individual score from one sitting is still the most important data point, right? And as I said, schools have always looked through the history of test-taking and they will have been pleased to see if you have reached a certain threshold on individual elements of the test.

[00:16:58] – Caroline

But at the end of the day, they want to see that you have done well on one sitting and you’ve And that individual total will be the score that’s reported.

[00:17:09] – Pola

Hmm. And I’m just looking on the GMAC— sorry, GMAC website, and they list some examples of how a superscore might be used in admissions. So I know we might have covered some of these, but, you know, a candidate’s— so we’ve talked about a candidate being and entering into the business school, but And about stamina, but also they mentioned here providing context for future admission and waitlist considerations, and also assessing some additional piece of information to support scholarship decisions. Can you speak to those a little bit, Maria?

[00:17:52] – Maria

I mean, yeah, I don’t know how this is. I guess because, you know, as Caroline mentioned, this can’t be the official score that goes into the student profiles that gets related to the ACSB or the governing bodies. Or so I don’t know if the school— like, normally scholarship merit scholarships are oftentimes related to, or they correlate positively with, a high GMAT score or getting off of the waitlist. If there are 2 fairly identical candidates on the waitlist and one submits a higher score while they’re on the waitlist, that might help nudge things in, in one direction or another. But that was already in existence. So the superscores, because it’s sort of a cosmetic score and not a foundational, you know, it’s kind of like the window dressing, but it’s not the foundation of the building. It’s just the exterior, you know, decoration. So I mean, look, like I think we said at the very— to bring it back to the beginning, it’s better than nothing. It’s fine. It’s neutral to positive, but I would not imagine that an admissions office is going to suddenly, you know, be like, oh, the wool has been pulled over our eyes by this superscore.

[00:19:05] – Maria

Uh, you know, I, I give, I give the good folks in admissions way more credit than that. Um, so, but I also think that, look, GMAC is— it’s— if to the extent that this helps encourage more people to do some retakes, uh, because the GMAT is, I believe, the slightly harder test versus the GRE, so if it helps people not be so afraid of it, then I think it’s, I think it’s ultimately positive, but it’s not like a slam dunk for, for candidates.

[00:19:34] – Pola

Got it.

[00:19:34] – Maria

Rightfully so.

[00:19:36] – Pola

And one, one other question here. So I’m curious, in both your experience, how many times on average have you seen candidates take the GMAT And also what’s the extreme end of things for taking it many, many times? Caroline, what have you seen?

[00:19:59] – Caroline

Yeah, I’m not sure what the average is. I would say a lot of people take it more than once. Um, so taking it 2 or 3 times is quite common. Beyond that, it’s less common, although I have seen candidates take it far more times than that. Uh, but as Maria said, often people kind of plateau at certain points, so not necessarily a benefit to keep taking it and make a hobby of retaking the GMAT. Um, what about you, Maria?

[00:20:29] – Pola

Definitely find better hobbies, right?

[00:20:32] – Maria

I mean, I, there are many better hobbies. Uh, pretty much any hobby, in fact. Um, yeah, I, I think, I think 2 is probably the average if I had to, if I had to guess, sort of like the most people probably take it twice. Um, I would assume that at the more elite schools like the INSEADs of the world, it’s probably more of a one-time, you know, a lot of people probably take it super seriously and so they probably do quite well the first time. So between 1 to 2 times, I would guess. But then for other scores or other, uh, schools, I should say, you know, where people, I don’t know, the candidates might not be taking it as seriously, then 2 to 3 times does tend to be more, more seen more often. Uh, But yeah, sometimes people take it 8, 9 times, and I think that is usually, unfortunately, they are just wasting their time and money because they either plateau or at a certain point, again, like, not to be— not to be judgmental, but at its root, at some point in an admissions role, you have to be judgmental. If someone takes it 9 times and it takes them 2 years and 9 attempts to finally get that high score, I don’t know that I put as much credence into that high score because I ask myself, well, how many thousands of dollars in tutoring did they spend?

[00:21:45] – Maria

How much, you know, is this really If they’re not going to get 2 whole years to take accounting or to take finance in business school, right? So if it takes them that long to get that high score, to me that high score doesn’t mean as much. It’s the same thing like when people quit their jobs in some places. They’ll be like, I’m quitting my job to study for the GMAT. And I’m like, that’s awful because now your score, even if you do really well, everyone else is working full-time and getting those scores. So now it makes your high score seem a little bit less impressive because you weren’t working.

[00:22:16] – Pola

So, oof. So they’ve got to do it in the early hours of the morning when their children are asleep and their job is finished.

[00:22:25] – Maria

Cool, Maria.

[00:22:25] – Pola

Very cool.

[00:22:26] – Caroline

Connor doesn’t like the sound of that.

[00:22:30] – Maria

I don’t know.

[00:22:30] – Pola

Like, I’m envisioning myself, as you can see, taking this test.

[00:22:35] – Maria

Just like, no.

[00:22:37] – Pola

All right.

[00:22:38] – Caroline

Well, let me not give him nightmares.

[00:22:41] – Maria

I know.

[00:22:41] – Pola

Sorry. I think though, I mean, you, you, you came back to another thing which I think is a, a really good issue to underline, uh, and that is access. So obviously we’ve mentioned, you know, this is helpful if you’re GMAC, but for candidates, um, you, you do have to devote a certain amount of resource to retaking this test and taking it in the first instance. But, and beyond that, as Maria, you just said, if you’re investing in, you know, in, in, in, in help to, to prepare, that’s additional, uh, funding obviously that that requires. Um, any final parting words on the SuperScore, uh, tests into, into, uh, B-school, Caroline?

[00:23:36] – Caroline

Yeah, so, so one thing I was thinking about, and you mentioned some of the points that GMAC had given for how it could be taken into account by admissions, And I can see how, for example, supposing you have a, you have 2 candidates who both have lower than average total GMAT scores, but one of them has taken the test 2 or 3 times and has a higher superscore, right? Which means that they have reached a higher threshold on one part of the test, at least, than the other candidate who has the same total score in one sitting. So you could imagine a scenario where that candidate with that higher superscore has a slight advantage on the margins because they have demonstrated that they can, they have reached a certain threshold on more parts of the test than that the other candidate who they’re being compared with. So that could potentially play into admissions decisions or scholarship decisions, but it’s a very small detail. And also, I would, as we’ve said, schools are looking, have always looked across the history of test-taking in any case. It is also possible that in the past some candidates may not have submitted the full history of test-taking.

[00:25:01] – Caroline

So as I was saying, I’ve always encouraged candidates if they have taken the test more than once and they’ve reached, they’ve had a strong quant score on one test and a strong verbal score on another test, I’ve encourage them to submit both of those tests. But it can happen that candidates do not submit both of those tests because they’re afraid that one of the tests won’t look so good because the total isn’t great or they bombed one part of the test, right? So for those candidates where they perhaps didn’t have the best strategy as regards selecting the test scores that they would submit to the school, for them, the Super Score could be a positive thing because now the schools will actually see, oh, he actually did reach this certain level on data insights, even though that’s not apparent in the one test that, that he has selected to submit to the school. So I think in a few cases it could be of benefit to the candidate.

[00:26:02] – Pola

All right, Maria. Parting words.

[00:26:06] – Maria

This is a nice cosmetic benefit that will dress up your, your total score report, but please give admissions officers credit for being smart, savvy folks, and don’t assume that you can try to use this to now game the system to optimize for your superscore while tanking, taking the test twice and tanking one section each time. They’re not going to fall for it. So please don’t, please don’t use that as your strategy.

[00:26:39] – Pola

All right. And that is it, folks, on the superscore. So we’re out of time, but please come back next week if you liked our podcast and also check out poetsandquants.com. Thank you so much to my co-hosts, Maria and Caroline. I am off to go watch some comedy, as they know now. Or are they? Well, had you read my email, Maria, you would know.

[00:27:03] – Maria

No, I knew you had a date night, but I guess I missed the— I was so excited for you that you had a date night that my brain skipped over the comedy show part of it because I know how rare that is when you have a toddler. I remember those days.

[00:27:17] – Pola

What are you— before we go, finally, what are you both off to do? Caroline, Where are you headed after this?

[00:27:27] – Caroline

Uh, well, I have to log on for a kid’s medical appointment, but then I have a lot of meetings this afternoon. But planning to make, um, blackberry ice cream with my kids tonight because we went blackberry picking at the weekend. It was kind of fun. So I’ve got a, got a great bounty of blackberries in the fridge to, to make something with.

[00:27:49] – Pola

That is awesome. That is like Top marks for that answer. Maria, what, what exciting things await you in New York?

[00:27:58] – Maria

It’s not, it’s not as cool as blackberry, homemade blackberries. Uh, I’m gonna go see— my husband got us tickets to see, I guess, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is doing some sort of a theatrical thing in Off-Broadway, uh, tomorrow night. And then of course over the weekend, uh, it’s the Colombia-Portugal Group K World Cup game. Uh, so obviously I am, I am rooting for Colombia. Uh, and I, I, I, I don’t know that they’re going to win, but I certainly hope they will. By the time this comes out, we’ll already know the result, but they’re number one in my hearts, in my heart.

[00:28:35] – Pola

Yeah.

[00:28:36] – Maria

Go Colombia, go Cafeteros! Even if, you know, Saturday doesn’t go, even if Cristiano Ronaldo stomps on their Face eats in their dreams.

[00:28:47] – Pola

Well, fingers crossed.

[00:28:47] – Maria

He has, he has a history of doing that to other teams. So.

[00:28:51] – Pola

That sounds like a great evening and weekend, even if it doesn’t include blackberry ice cream, which I now want to. So thank you so much to my co-hosts and to wrap it up. Thank you everyone for listening.