Graduate Management Admission Council. The world geographic trend report for GMAT® Examinees 2011. Graduate Management Admission Council, Reston, VA, 2012. Pages: 36.

The World Geographic Trend Report presents trends in the student pipeline for graduate
management education. Specifically, the report provides an in-depth examination of data collected from respondents taking the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) during the 2007 and 2011 testing years. The GMAT is a standardised test employed for applicant screening by many business schools around the world.

The report provides insight into both absolute changes in the worldwide volume of test-takers and relative changes having to do with the proportion of total scores sent to a given country or region.  Understanding both types of information enhances a business school’s ability to navigate the student pipeline and recruit effectively. Among the key findings are the following observations:

• prospective students around the world sat for 258,192 GMAT exams in 2011, the third highest annual total ever
• East and Southeast Asia has experienced the largest growth (15% from 2010, and 67% from 2007)
• proportion of non-US test-takers continues to rise (55 per cent of exams were taken by citizens from countries other than the United States)
• although the United States remain the primary study destination for 9 of the 10 citizenship groups identified, prospective students are increasingly interested in domestic and regional opportunities as well.