What’s the Best Executive Assessment Exam Score?

Business schools are increasingly using the Executive Assessment for their executive MBA (EMBA) programs. As with other test scores such as the GMAT or GRE, getting the best Executive Assessment exam score is imperative when you are planning to apply for the best business schools for executive MBA admissions. Also, achieving a good EA exam score indicates ‘business school readiness.’ Therefore, you should not consider the Executive Assessment exam a competitive race for the highest score possible.

What is Executive Assessment?

The Executive Assessment (EA) is an entrance exam designed by the GMAC (Graduate Management Admissions Council). It’s specifically meant for Executive MBA program applicants. EMBA applicants usually have busy schedules and demanding jobs. Therefore, they don’t have much time to commit to achieving a high score on the GRE or GMAT.

EA considers your professional skills and evaluates you in several areas, including critical thinking, reasoning, problem-solving, and communication.

Executive Assessment Score

The EA has three sections: Integrated Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Quantitative Reasoning. Each of these sections counts towards the overall EA score. The score possibilities range from 100 to 200, but the best Executive Assessment score is above 150.

How the Executive Assessment is Scored

The Executive Assessment is an adaptive test. That means, when you answer questions correctly, your test is “adapted up” to include more complex questions. Likewise, when your answers are incorrect, the test will adapt to include easier questions. 

Each EA section is divided into halves because of the exam’s adaptive algorithm. Therefore, the test adapts up or down in the 2^nd half of each section. For instance, you’ll get a six-question mini-test with medium-level questions in the Integrated Reasoning (IR) section. Then, after submitting those six questions, the test presents you with another mini-test of six more IR questions. 

Your performance on the first mini-test will determine the difficulty of this second mini-test. So if you aced the first mini-test, the test will adapt and include more complex questions. However, if you failed the first questions, the test will adapt down and include easier questions.

Scoring in the verbal and quantitative sections

The same procedure repeats in the verbal and quantitative sections, except each mini-test consists of 7 questions. Also, your overall performance in IR determines the first halves of VR and QR. This means if you perform well in IR, you will begin VR and QR with difficult questions. Also, if you give an average or poor performance in IR, your VR, and QR will start with medium-difficulty or easier questions.

Overall, this means that your EA score partially depends on the difficulty level of the questions you missed. Not just on the number of questions you missed. For instance, if you did well on the first mini-test of the QR section, and the test adapts up to include a bunch of tough questions, it wouldn’t be fair to penalize you harshly for missing the tough questions. Therefore, the scoring algorithm takes the difficulty levels into account.

After you’ve completed the test, you will see your individual IR, QR, and VR scores (out of 20) and the overall EA score (on a scale from 100 to 200). 

What is a Good Executive Assessment Score? 

Executive Assessment is a readiness test. Therefore, the goal is not to earn the highest score possible. But at the end of the day, a good score should get you into your target program.

Unlike the GMAT, an Executive Assessment exam score is a small component of an overall Executive MBA application. Also, other factors, such as leadership experience, career goals, employment history, and professional accomplishments, tend to have more weight than the EA score.

Nonetheless, a good EA score should at least align with your target school’s average. For the top Executive MBA programs, a score above 150 should be enough, in addition to a solid application, to demonstrate your preparedness for the EMBA.

Even though GMAC reports that the maximum possible EA score is 200, records of admitted students, percentile rankings, and multiple reputable sources indicate that no student has ever scored higher than 174 on the Executive Assessment exam.

What is the Best Executive Assessment Exam Score for Top EMBA Programs?

GMAC has released only limited information about Executive Assessment exam scores. Also, just a few of the top part-time and EMBA programs have begun publishing data on average EA exam scores. And there’s a consistent pattern in these limited data releases. Even at the best EMBA programs, the average EA scores are consistently in the 150s. 

EA aims to provide Executive MBA programs with valuable data on older students’ ability to succeed in graduate-level business coursework. So if you are applying for ultra-elite EMBA programs, a ‘good’ EA exam score will depend on the rest of your profile. But the general rule of thumb is that an EA exam score above 150 will put you in the right proximity to top EMBA programs. Alternatively, if you are applying to less-competitive EMBA programs, you can be in great shape with an EA score closer to 150.

Generally, if your Executive Assessment exam score is within a reasonable range for your target programs, you are good to go. And that is your best Executive Assessment exam score. Therefore, you don’t need to spend much time and effort worrying about a general definition of the best Executive Assessment exam score.

Conclusion

EMBA programs value the Executive Assessment exam as an indicator of potential. They also understand that EA exam takers have less time to commit to test preparation than GMAT takers. Therefore, the best EA exam score complements an applicant’s overall profile, demonstrating how ready they are to start the next chapter of their professional journey. 150 is often considered a good score in EMBA conversations, but a score above 150 can earn you a position in top EMBA programs.

Would you like to increase your chances of going higher than the threshold score? Enroll with AnalystPrep today for quality EA exam preparation. It just got easier to prep for your exams.