For many years, business schools favored the GMAT over the GRE because, whereas the GRE is a test created for admission to a wide range of graduate school programs, the GMAT was created specifically for MBA admissions. However, today, most MBA programs allow applicants to submit either GMAT or GRE scores as a part of their applications.

With an increased number of individuals taking the GRE (or taking both the GMAT and the GRE), it has become useful for test-takers to know the GMAT score equivalent to their GRE score. In fact, a greater number of MBA applicants are seeking a tool to help them to convert their GRE scores to GMAT scores.

A greater number of MBA applicants are seeking a tool to help them to convert their GRE scores to GMAT scores. Because there are many differences between the GMAT and the GRE, including the population of people taking each test, the question types, and the scoring systems, it’s difficult to make a perfect conversion from a GRE score to its corresponding GMAT score. However, ETS, the company that administers the GRE, has created a GRE to GMAT score conversion tool for you to use.

In this article we’ll show you how to use the ETS GRE to GMAT conversion tool to convert your GRE score to a GMAT score, discuss why you may want to convert your GRE to a GMAT, talk a bit about how accurate the GRE to GMAT conversion may be, explore whether admissions committees convert GRE scores to GMAT scores, and more.

Let’s begin by discussing why you might wish to convert your GRE score to a GMAT score.


Let’s discuss the two main reasons why you might want to convert your GRE score to its equivalent GMAT score.


If you’ve taken both the GMAT and the GRE, it would be helpful to know which score would help you enhance your candidacy for MBA programs. One way to determine which score, your GMAT or your GRE, is higher is to convert your GRE score to its corresponding GMAT score.

For example, let’s say that you scored 164 on the GRE Quantitative Reasoning section and 166 on the GRE Verbal Reasoning section. Let’s say you also took the GMAT, scoring 730. All else being equal, which score, your GMAT score or your GRE, would most likely maximize your selection potential for business school programs?

As we’ll soon see, we can easily convert the 164Q/166V GRE score to a GMAT score of 720. Thus, all else being equal, the GMAT score of 730 is higher than the 164Q/166V GRE score. So (again, all else equal), you would likely choose to submit the 730 GMAT score.


Some MBA applicants take only the GRE. If the MBA programs to which you’re applying publish GRE score statistics of accepted MBA applicants, then there is probably much less of a need to convert your GRE scores to GMAT scores to better understand how competitive your GRE scores are for those business school programs.

For example, if you’re applying to the MBA program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), you may not need to convert your GRE score to a GMAT score, because Stanford GSB makes its GRE score statistics public. For the class of 2023, the average GRE verbal score at Stanford Business School is 165, and the average GRE verbal score is 165. Thus, if you scored, for example, 166Q/167V on the GRE, you would probably not need to convert your GRE score to a GMAT score to see that your GRE scores are competitive for the MBA program at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

On the other hand, the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, which accepts both the GMAT and the GRE, lists on its website the average GMAT score of accepted students (679 for the class of 2023) but does not list the GRE statistics. Thus, if you’re applying to the MBA program at Kelley, it may be helpful to know your GRE to GMAT converted score.

So, let’s take a look at a GRE to GMAT score conversion chart.


Using the GRE to GMAT score conversion information provided by ETS, we constructed the following charts, which you can use to convert a GRE score to its corresponding GMAT score.

For example, using the GRE to GMAT score conversion charts, we can see that a 164Q/164V GRE score converts to a GMAT score of 710.