GMAT Score to IQ: The Focus Percentile Chart and Why It Is Not an IQ
There is no official GMAT-to-IQ conversion: GMAC says its scores have not been equated with other tests. What it publishes is a percentile among GMAT test takers, 97.5 for a Focus total of 705, a self-selected pool of 93,196 exams in a year.
What you need to know
- GMAC publishes no GMAT-to-IQ table and tells users not to compare GMAT scores with other tests. Its August 2026 table (data from July 2021 to June 2026) gives a percentile for each Focus total from 205 to 805: 505 is the 27.3rd, 555 the 47.4th, 605 the 69.4th, 655 the 89.6th, 705 the 97.5th and 745 the 99.6th.
- The percentile is a rank among people who took the GMAT, not among the population: 93,196 exams were taken in testing year 2025, and an exam is not a person. The same percentile therefore maps to different IQs depending on a pool nobody has measured.
- Focus scores all end in 5, so a "700 GMAT" is a 10th-edition (classic) score. GMAC links classic 700 to Focus 645 or 655, the 85.6th to 89.6th percentile. Percentiles move each August: a 705 was the 98.2nd in the 2024 table and the 97.5th in 2026.
- The GMAT predicts MBA performance better than undergraduate GPA in a meta-analysis of 402 samples and 64,583 students, but we found no published correlation between the GMAT and an IQ test, and American Mensa's qualifying-scores page has no GMAT row.
There is no official conversion from a GMAT score to an IQ, and the people who run the test say so: the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) states that GMAT scores have not been equated with other tests and should not be estimated from them. What GMAC does publish is a percentile for every total score on the current GMAT Focus Edition scale of 205 to 805. In its August 2026 table, built from test takers between July 2021 and June 2026, a total of 505 is the 27.3rd percentile, 555 the 47.4th, 605 the 69.4th, 655 the 89.6th, 705 the 97.5th and 745 the 99.6th. Those are ranks among people who chose to sit the GMAT, not among the general population, which is why a GMAT-to-IQ table from a prep site cannot be trusted.
What is the GMAT Focus percentile chart?
GMAC re-issues a concordance table every August that lists, for each total score, the percentage of test takers a candidate performed better than. The 2026 edition shows these Focus totals (the 2024 edition, built from July 2019 to June 2024, is in brackets where we read it):
- 805 and 775: 100.0% (rounded)
- 745: 99.6%
- 705: 97.5% (98.2% in 2024)
- 685: 95.1%
- 655: 89.6%
- 645: 85.6% (87.7% in 2024)
- 605: 69.4%
- 555: 47.4% (49.0% in 2024)
- 505: 27.3% (27.6% in 2024)
- 205: 0.2%
Reading the table, the median total sits at about 560, because 555 is the 47.4th percentile and 565 the 50.4th. The middle half of test takers fall between roughly 495 (25.4%) and 615 (75.4%). The top is compressed: 50 points from 655 to 705 move the percentile by only 7.9 points, and 40 more, to 745, by 2.1. And because the window is five years and refreshed every August, a fixed chart on a prep site is out of date after each update.
How is the GMAT Focus Edition scored?
The GMAT Exam, which GMAC began offering in November 2023, has three sections of 45 minutes each: Quantitative Reasoning (21 questions), Verbal Reasoning (23) and Data Insights (20). That is 64 questions in 2 hours 15 minutes, with no writing section. Section scores run from 60 to 90 and carry equal weight, and the total runs from 205 to 805 with every score ending in 5. It replaced the 10th edition, used between June 2012 and February 2024, which scored 200 to 800 and included Analytical Writing and Integrated Reasoning.
GMAC says it is not possible to directly compare total scores from the older version with the current one. Its concordance is a percentile link, and it shows ranges rather than a single equivalent: a 10th-edition 700 links to Focus 655 or 645 (89.6% or 85.6%), a 600 to 565 or 555 (50.4% or 47.4%) and an 800 to 805. A 5-point score such as 645 is therefore a Focus score; a "700 GMAT" is a classic one.
Why a GMAT percentile is not an IQ percentile
A percentile is a rank within a reference group, and the GMAT's group is small and self-selected. GMAC counts 93,196 GMAT exams taken in testing year 2025, from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025, and more than 600,000 over five testing years. Those are exams, not people, since repeat takers are counted each time. They are people who have decided to apply to a graduate management program, a group that is not the general population on any measure.
An IQ is a rank against the whole population, with 100 as the average and a standard deviation of 15. Put the two together and the arithmetic is only as good as the pool. Read as a population rank, the 89.6th percentile would be an IQ of about 119. But suppose, purely as an illustration and not a finding, that GMAT takers averaged 110 with a standard deviation of 13: the same 655 would then be about 126. The table below applies the first reading, which we do not endorse, so that you can see how little it can bear:
- 27.3rd percentile (Focus 505): about 91 as a population rank
- 47.4th (555): about 99
- 69.4th (605): about 108
- 89.6th (655): about 119
- 97.5th (705): about 129
- 99.6th (745): about 140
A GMAT percentile ranks people who chose to sit the exam. Turn it into an IQ and you have assumed a pool nobody has measured.
The same trap applies to every score-to-IQ claim for a selective exam; our guides to the MCAT, the LSAT and the SAT make the same point with their own data, and the IQ percentile calculator shows the arithmetic for any rank.
What do MBA classes score on the GMAT?
Harvard Business School's class profile for the MBA Class of 2027, 943 students from 9,409 applications in 2024-25, reports two GMAT blocks: a median of 685 with the middle 80% from 645 to 735 (the page does not label it, but the values fit the Focus scale) and a 10th-edition median of 730 with the middle 80% from 690 to 770. On GMAC's 2026 table a Focus 685 is the 95.1st percentile of all test takers; that mapping is our reading of the table, not HBS's statement. HBS says 44% of the class submitted the GRE, 34% the GMAT and 28% the older GMAT, with some submitting more than one, and that there is no minimum GMAT or GRE and no preference for a test. Our analysis of Harvard students and of MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Stanford shows what such admissions data can and cannot say about IQ.
Is the GMAT an IQ test?
No, and GMAC does not claim it is. It describes the exam as measuring higher-order reasoning and data literacy skills and as only one factor in the admissions decision. American Mensa's page of qualifying test scores lists the GRE, SAT and LSAT in its college-preparatory table and has no GMAT row, so a GMAT result cannot be used to join.
What the GMAT does predict is graduate business school performance. A meta-analysis by Kuncel, Credé and Thomas in Academy of Management Learning and Education (2007) combined 402 independent samples across 64,583 students and concluded that the GMAT is a superior predictor to undergraduate GPA, and that the two together predict well. We found no published study that correlates the GMAT with an IQ test, so any "GMAT-to-IQ correlation" quoted online is an assumption. The item types, data sufficiency and critical reasoning among them, are reasoning tasks of the kind an IQ battery also uses, though no study we found has measured the overlap, and our blog's guide to GRE and LSAT scores to IQ covers the same limits for the other graduate admissions tests.
GMAT or GRE: is there a conversion?
No official one. GMAC says GMAT scores cannot be estimated from scores on other tests, and HBS says it has no preference between the two; 44% of its Class of 2027 sent the GRE, more than sent either version of the GMAT. Any chart that turns a GRE score into a GMAT score or an IQ is a third party's estimate. For how another selective test turns scores into ranks, see ACT score to IQ.
How to read a GMAT score
- Check the edition: a Focus total ends in 5 and runs 205 to 805; a 700 is a 10th-edition score
- Read the percentile as a rank among GMAT test takers over the last five years, and note the year of the table
- Compare section scores (60 to 90) as well as the total: the three sections carry equal weight
- Treat a score as a band, not a point: our guide to the IQ score margin of error explains why
- Never turn a percentile into an IQ without naming the pool
Where would your own score land?
Want a score on the standard IQ scale, with its percentile against the general population? Take the IQ Metrics test.
Find your IQ score now! →The bottom line: a Focus 705 is the 97.5th percentile of GMAT test takers, which says something about reasoning skills of the kind business schools care about and nothing precise about IQ. For a measured score on the standard scale, take the IQ Metrics IQ test, or convert a score between scales with our score converter.
Common questions
Is there a GMAT score to IQ conversion?
No official one. GMAC says GMAT scores have not been equated with other tests and cannot be estimated from them. It publishes percentiles among GMAT test takers, and any GMAT-to-IQ table is a third party applying a normal curve to that self-selected pool.
What percentile is a 705 on the GMAT Focus?
GMAC's August 2026 table puts a Focus total of 705 at the 97.5th percentile of GMAT test takers (data July 2021 to June 2026); in the 2024 table it was the 98.2nd.
Is a 700 GMAT score good?
Focus scores end in 5, so 700 is a 10th-edition score. GMAC links a classic 700 to a Focus 645 or 655, the 85.6th to 89.6th percentile of GMAT test takers. Harvard Business School's Class of 2027 median was 685 on the Focus scale.
Is the GMAT an IQ test?
No. GMAC describes it as measuring higher-order reasoning and data literacy skills, and it predicts MBA performance better than undergraduate GPA in a 402-sample meta-analysis. We found no published GMAT-IQ correlation, and American Mensa lists no GMAT row.
Sources for this story
- GMAT Score Concordance Table, total score sorted by percentile ranking (published August 2026; August 2024 edition) — Graduate Management Admission Council
- GMAT Exam overview; GMAT Exam scores — Graduate Management Admission Council, gmac.com
- Profile of GMAT Testing, citizenship report, testing years 2021 to 2025 — Graduate Management Admission Council
- MBA class profile, Class of 2027 — Harvard Business School
- Kuncel, N.R., Credé, M. and Thomas, L.L., A meta-analysis of the predictive validity of the GMAT and undergraduate GPA (2007), doi 10.5465/amle.2007.24401702 — Academy of Management Learning and Education
- Qualifying test scores — American Mensa
Corrections: spotted an error? Email corrections@iqmetrics.org and we will update this story and note the change here.
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