Humanities Majors and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT)
- Among all bachelor鈥檚 recipients, humanities majors are the least likely to take the GMAT, constituting 4鈥6% of all examinees over the 2000鈥2009 time period (Indicator III-11a).
- From 2000 to 2009, students with humanities degrees performed better than business majors, on average, and approximately as well as social and natural science majors (Indicator III-11b).
Source: Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAT), 鈥淧rofile of GMAT Candidates, 1999鈥00 to 2003鈥04鈥 and 鈥淧rofile of GMAT Candidates, 2004鈥05 to 2008鈥09,鈥 .
Data on who takes the are available from the Graduate Management Admission Council. Performance on professional school entrance examinations can serve as a measure of the extent to which individuals with undergraduate majors in the humanities are prepared for professional employment. While humanities students who take a professional school examination might not actually pursue a career in the tested field, the substantial fees and preparation involved in taking the test suggest the career options humanities students are seriously exploring. Moreover, test results of this kind can provide some measure of the applicability of the humanistic knowledge and skills gained in college to the entrance requirements for various professional occupations.
* The total score is a scaled combination of the verbal and quantitative scaled scores and thus reflects a student鈥檚 overall performance on the multiple-choice sections of the test. The scoring scale extends from 200 to 800.
Source: Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAT), 鈥淧rofile of GMAT Candidates, 1999鈥00 to 2003鈥04鈥 and 鈥淧rofile of GMAT Candidates, 2004鈥05 to 2008鈥09,鈥 .
Data on who takes the are available from the Graduate Management Admission Council. Performance on professional school entrance examinations can serve as a measure of the extent to which individuals with undergraduate majors in the humanities are prepared for professional employment. While humanities students who take a professional school examination might not actually pursue a career in the tested field, the substantial fees and preparation involved in taking the test suggest the career options humanities students are seriously exploring. Moreover, test results of this kind can provide some measure of the applicability of the humanistic knowledge and skills gained in college to the entrance requirements for various professional occupations.
