At the beginning of this year, the Graduate Management Admission Council, administrator of the GMAT test, announced a new feature called the GMAT Enhanced Score Report, which aims to improve applicants’ understanding of their test performance.

The GMAT enhanced score report will break down a wide variety of data surrounding your test performance, and how well you use that data could factor into your MBA admissions chances.

Combined with the Score Preview feature – which lets you cancel a score before sending it to a school – these changes will give you more control over how you use your GMAT score.

This blog post will provide GMAT tips for using these new resources to your advantage, to makes sure that you achieve your best possible score and make your very best impression on top MBA programs.

What’s in This Enhanced Score Report?

The GMAT Enhanced Score Report includes data about the following:

– Average time answering each question

– Average time spent by question type

– Overall time management relative to other test takers

– Section and subsection performance breakdown

– Personalized analysis

– Suggestions for using the report to talk about and improve your score

Take a look at a sample Enhanced Score Report to see what this information looks like.

For only $24.99, that is a pretty good trove of data. After all, the business world is increasingly driven by big data. Why shouldn’t you use the same analytical approach when reviewing your GMAT score?

Great, Now What Do I Do With This Data?

What you do with the Enhanced Score Report depends on if you are going to retake the GMAT or not.

First, let’s think about how to use the report if you were not entirely happy with your score and want to use the report to glean some GMAT tips to retake the test.

– Pinpoint your weakest section and devote most of your study time to improving that score

– Determine which questions types gave you the most trouble. Flag the GMAT question formats that proved trickiest for you and focus on those question types as you retake practice tests

– Use the time management metrics to determine where you were most inefficient. The questions that took you the most time were likely some of the ones that you had the most trouble with.

Even if you got the answer right the first time, you might be more likely to miss a similar question on the next test.

Make sure to flag those topics for extra study

– Identify your strengths. The Enhanced Score Report will show which question types and sections that you performed well in.

With that knowledge, you can avoid wasting time and energy studying concepts and question formats that you already excel in.

The GMAT Enhanced Score Report should be very helpful if you are planning on retaking the test, and will hopefully guide you to a strong score that will impress MBA admissions board members from top MBA programs.

Now, what if you are happy with your score and not planning to retake the GMAT?

How Can You Use The Enhanced Score Report?

There are a few ways you can use the Enhanced Score report in your MBA application process:

Identify strengths to emphasize in your MBA application.

Your Enhanced Score Report will show you where you excel in comparison to your competition.

Maybe you are particularly analytical.

Maybe your financial acumen is far above average.

Whatever it is, use that knowledge to your advantage by emphasizing related traits in other areas of your MBA application.

Identify potential problems to address in your application.

Weakness on a particular section of the test could point to a more thematic weakness in your MBA application.

While these weaknesses are likely not extreme red flags, you should be careful to identify them and build an MBA application that addresses any potential problems, however small.

Identify areas to work on before business school.

Coursework in any top MBA program will be at least as rigorous as the GMAT.

Use your Enhanced Score Report to think about classes that you might struggle with.

You can take preemptive action now, with extra study or coursework, to prevent yourself from struggling during your first year as an MBA.

Conclusion

With the Enhanced Score Report, the GMAT test will give you much more insight into your strengths and weaknesses.

What’s more, you can use that data to take action, both by playing to your strengths and remedying your weaknesses.

You can also use the score preview feature to be more strategic about the scores that you submit to your target business school.

If you have doubts about a score on test day, consider holding off on submitting your score – you don’t want to submit something that you are not proud of.

Instead, you can use the Enhanced Score Report to boost your score the next time you take the test.

You should also check out these 16 GMAT Preparation Strategies, whether you are taking the test for the first time or returning to try for a better score.

In the MBA application process, it is always good as many self-assessment tools as possible.

Consider the GMAT Enhanced Score Report one more tool in your self-assessment and personal branding toolkit.