Test-optional admission policies have resulted in increased application numbers and student diversity at many business schools, according to a recent report by the MBA Roundtable and Wiley. 
Jeff Bieganek
“Test-Optional Admission Policies and The Impact on Graduate Management Education,” surveyed and collected the input of 116 deans, directors, faculty, and staff at 107 graduate business schools – a mix of public schools and private, non-profit schools – in September and October 2022.
“Graduate business programs have eased requirements for cognitive-based standardized testing for admissions in recent years,” the report noted. “Most programs reporting do not require a standardized test score as a part of the admissions process for all incoming students. Only one in five (20%) fulltime MBA programs require test scores of all applicants, which is the greatest for all program types.”
Academic leaders surveyed included those from schools such as Arizona State University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ball State University; Miami University; University of Texas at Austin; Michigan State University; University of Toronto; New York University; North Carolina State University; and Northeastern University.
"The roundtable [focuses] on graduate management business curriculum ... what's going on in MBA programs, specialized Master's credentials, and what innovations are taking place,” said Jeff Bieganek, executive director of the MBA Roundtable. “We'd been hearing that programs have been going test-optional in their admissions process, so we were curious to know what changes schools were seeing because of that decision, how it was impacting their curriculum, and what sort of things they may need from us and our partners like Wiley to help them be ready and provide the services and the curriculum that the students need."
The report indicated that 60% reported increased diversity in the racial/ethnic make-up of its incoming class, while 44% reported more gender diversity. Additionally, 43% reported increased diversity of academic background of its incoming class and 49% said there was more diversity in career backgrounds.
Due to test-optional policies, application volumes to business programs rose for most respondents, the study found.
