GMAT Test-Takers Love European Business Schools

To follow up my post about elite European business schools, more GMAT test-takers sent their scores to business school in Europe in 2009 than ever before. Smart marketing by top schools must be working!

GMAT test-takers worldwide sent their scores to European business schools--the number of score reports received by European business schools increased 96 percent from 2005 to 2009 (very strong compared to the 41 percent worldwide increase during the same four years). In Europe, local test-takers rose by 30 percent (from 15,996 to 22,296). Unfortunately for the United States, fewer of these European test-takers sent their scores to U.S. B-schools--in other words, they're staying closer to home. From GMAC research:

The total number of score reports European citizens sent to business schools rose from 38,935 in TY05 to 50,893 in TY09. But during this five-year span, there was a reversal of market share between the United States and Europe. The percentage of European scores sent to U.S. schools declined from 49 percent to 41 percent as the percentage of European scores sent to schools in the U.K., France, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Greece, and Italy rose from 41 percent to 49 percent.

European test takers also sent an average of only 2.2 score reports per examinee in TY09, the lowest of any world region, says GMAC senior research analyst Courtney Defibaugh. "European students tend to focus on fewer graduate programs than students anywhere else, and increasingly this focus is on regional business programs."