Every year thousands of business school aspirants take the GMAT, hoping to get into one of the top schools. The GMAT is an adaptive computer test designed to test analytical writing assessment, integrated reasoning, quantitative and verbal reasoning skills.

Until the last couple of decades, GMAT was the only standardized test for business school admissions. However, even after GRE’s entry into the business school admissions, the GMAT remains the most popular business school standardized test to date.

If you have ever frequented the many MBA forums on the internet, including Reddit, one thing is readily apparent, the hunger to get as high a score as possible. As a result, there are hundreds upon hundreds of posts on these forums discussing the various strategies and study material to get there.

This emphasis on acquiring that perfect 800 or a nearby score is borne out of the sheer competitiveness of business schools like Stanford and Harvard. Yet, one can’t help but wonder if a perfect 800 score is even possible, and better yet, has anyone ever achieved it?

Has Anyone Scored a Perfect 800 on GMAT?

The quick answer is Yes. People have, in fact, scored a perfect 800 on the GMAT. However, such instances are scarce. As one can imagine, scoring 800 on the GMAT is no easy feat. One needs to get at least 90% of the quant questions and 90% of the verbal questions right. In other words, there is absolutely little margin for error, and quite a few things have to go right for one to hit that perfect score, including luck.

In my quest for the perfect scorers, I have come across the fact that at most 0.5% of the global test takers get a perfect GMAT score. While there are no official stats on the subject, but many popular GMAT forums and blogs do share stories of perfect scorers. Since we all know the internet is a place of “honesty and truth”, ahem ahem, I approached the claims with a pinch of salt.

Claiming a perfect score is one thing. Showing an official transcript is another. You will be surprised to know that so far, only one such score is verifiable, and it belongs to Marty Murray from Target Test prep.

This is not to say that only one person has ever attained a perfect score. Instead, I was only able to verify one. Of course, there have to be multiple people each year who get that 800, but we are only left with speculation in the absence of any actual stats. However, I have seen multiple instances of people claiming that 30 people each year manage to attain a perfect 800, but I couldn’t find a credible source for that.

What Does it Take to Achieve a Perfect Score?

According to Marty Murray, in the past, it might have been possible to fetch an 800 even if you got a couple of questions wrong. However, due to the increased competition and more and more people taking the test, there is no leeway.

This means that a test-taker would have to score 51 on quant and 51 on verbal, 51 being the maximum score in both sections. Moreover, you would have to answer all the questions in each section correctly, including the experimental questions, because you wouldn’t know which questions are experimental. If you get lucky, you might only get a couple of experimental questions wrong, but that’s up to luck.

Does an 800 Score Make a Difference? 

Alright, so certain people do manage to achieve a perfect score. Good for them, but the more pertinent question is, does it make a difference? Aside from bragging rights, does it help your admissions prospects compared to 770-780 scorers?

It turns out that business schools at the very top, such as Stanford, don’t really care about your perfect score. I was quite surprised to find out that Standford is on record for rejecting 800-score applicants. This goes to show that such schools do truly take a holistic approach to your application and don’t fixate on numbers beyond a certain level.

Conclusion

A 770 or 780 score might be just as good as an 800 if you have other achievements to show besides just the numbers. Your GPA is also a significant factor, and so is work experience, research experience, recommendations, and such.

Moreover, if we take a look at the 2022 MBA classes from top schools like Stanford and Wharton, it is apparent that the average GMAT score of those admitted is no higher than 730.

In conclusion, yes, there are rare instances of people attaining a perfect score on the GMAT. However, only a few of these are verifiable, while the claims are many. It might as well be that multiple each year achieve this feat, but since GMAC hasn’t published official data on the matter, it is difficult to say.

However, a more relevant question is whether it is even worth going through the months of mental turmoil to achieve such a score. Statistically, it would be nearly impossible to achieve such a score on your first attempt. The people who get such a score are mostly tutors who take the test every couple of years to advertise their abilities.

The margin of error in attaining such a score is practically nonexistent as even a single incorrect question can bring your score down by a couple of points.

From a purely academic perspective, there is ample evidence to suggest that at after the 770 mark, all scores are treated practically the same. It all boils down to the various other things on your application that collectively determines whether you get in or not. I would suggest that you spend more time on making an overall stellar profile instead of expecting your score to do the heavy lifting.