What is considered a good score?

The answer probably depends most on what school you intend to apply for. Many business schools communicate the average scores of the people taken in the last year. This, however, is only a rough indicator as admission is usually not only based on GMAT scores but on a variety of different aspects. Other schools prefer not to disclose any information on their applicants which makes it harder to evaluate what is considered a good score on the GMAT choose one.

In case you are considering to apply for what many consider to be the top schools, such as the Harvard Business School or the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a good score is considered to be in the area of 700. This means, that most applicants that are accepted into these schools were either a bit below or above this magical border. By no means does it equal that you are being guaranteed admission once your score on the GMAT exam is above 700. It does mean that your chances of getting into these Ivy League business schools are much better once your score is somewhere around this border.

The differences between American and non-American business schools regarding the GMAT scores of their intakes are not dramatic. A recent report has shown that we are talking about a few points in difference here. That means that your chances of being admitted to a top school in either Europe or America are almost the same once you reach the comfortable level of being somewhere around the figure of 700.

Let's assume that you have achieved a score of 620. Does this mean that you are automatically excluded from applying at the top schools? It does not. As stated above, this is just one aspect that goes into the decision process. References, your real-life experiences and the general impression you leave are probably more important to the Business School as they communicate far more than a single number.