The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) announced in June 2010 that it would be making a major change in the GMAT, the entrance exam required by most business school admissions departments. This change, the addition of an Integrated Reasoning section, goes into effect on June 5, 2012.

The new section aims to test candidates’ ability to develop solutions to problems, a “microcosm of what you do in class” and in real-world business, according to GMAC CEO David Wilson. Whereas the current GMAT already allows schools to screen applicants for quantitative and verbal reasoning, the new format will give schools insight into applicants’ ability to interpret and work with data from multiple sources, and to formulate solutions based on that limited data.

The length of the test will remain 3.5 hours, and the Quantitative and Verbal scoring will remain the same. The 30 minute Integrated Reasoning section will simply replace one of the two Analytical Writing Assessments and, like the AWA, will be scored separately and will not be adaptive (the IR section questions won’t adjust based on your performance).

The new section consists of 12 questions of four types (Graphics Interpretation, Two-Part Analysis, Table Analysis, and Multisource Reasoning). It will be partly administered via headphones, testing candidates’ auditory learning style and the answers may be in multiple parts and in drop-down menus, rather than in standard multiple choice. Sample questions can be found here.

So, what does the change signify?

The GMAC added the Integrated Reasoning section in response to a 2009 survey of business school faculty who indicated that they increasingly want to admit students who can make real-world decisions with complex and limited information. These students have a better chance of success in the business school classroom, and a better chance of success in running real companies. More and more, b-schools are looking for the kinds of students Acton has always sought, and they can use the new section to screen for an aspect of entrepreneurial thinking.

In fact, in speaking about the GMAT changes, Dave Wilson goes on to suggest that the MBA student of the future is a “different, creative person,” that there will be more “musicians, artists,” and “more and more entrepreneurs.” (Watch Wilson’s interview here–the pertinent minutes are from 2:46 to 5:24.)

This potential trend in business education is great news for the economic future, since jobs and innovations are created by those who start and run businesses, and the better-prepared our entrepreneurs are, the more opportunities they’ll create.

But I wonder whether the typical, traditional business school is really prepared to teach the new student it hopes to attract? Entrepreneurs seeking MBA degrees are hard-pressed to find a curriculum that stresses doing rather than merely knowing, and that gives them opportunities for experiential learning in decision-making.

It is exciting to think that a more entrepreneurial GMAT points to a more entrepreneurial MBA student who will demand a more entrepreneurial education. And why stop at graduate education? Acton founder Jeff Sandefer recently spoke about a “tsunami of change” in education that will foster entrepreneurial thinking in students at every level.

Tags: Admissions, Education, Entrepreneurship in the News, GMAT

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