World Geographic Trend Report TY2006 to TY2010

Geographic Trends, Research, Global, 2010, Assessment Report

Alex Chisholm & Hillary Taliaferro

World Geographic Trend Report cover TY2010

This report identifies migratory trends among GMAT® examinees applying to and attending graduate business school illustrating which countries and schools are of interest to citizens of various world regions.

Overview

The World Geographic Trend Report for GMAT Examinees highlights regional and world trends in the student pipeline for graduate management education. In this annual report, geographic and background data collected after each test taker completes the GMAT exam are used and combined with score-sending patterns. Together they illustrate which countries and schools are of interest to citizens of various world regions. Data from the most recent testing year are compared against data from four years prior to identify changes in examinee preferences.

GMAT score-sending data revealed two key types of information related to examinees’ geographic program preferences; 1) absolute change in the overall number of GMAT score reports that are sent each year, which reflects the physical size of the annual student pipeline and 2) relative change, which measures the proportion of total scores sent to a given country or region and reveals structural changes in market share. Understanding both types of information—absolute and relative—enhances a school’s ability to navigate the student pipeline and recruit effectively.

Major differences in score-sending behavior were observed between TY 2006 and TY 2010 for many regions in this report. This is not surprising given the global nature of higher education today, which is characterized by innovation and constant change.

Quick Facts

  • Prospective business school students sat for the GMAT exam 263,979 times in TY 2010. This level represents the second-largest annual total since the exam was first administered in1954.
  • Non-US examinees represented the majority of the GMAT student pipeline for the second consecutive year in TY 2010, taking 52% of all GMAT exams.
  • GMAT examinees sent a total of 779,045score reports to graduate management education programs around the world in TY 2010.US programs received 78, down from 83% in TY2006.