Went with the EA instead of GMAT for my MBA apps — score and prep breakdown
Decided on the Executive Assessment instead of the GMAT after talking to admissions consultants. I'm 11 years out of undergrad and the thought of grinding GMAT quant for 6 months felt brutal. Prepped 7 weeks and scored 153, which was enough for my target programs.
The EA is about 90 minutes total. Questions are harder individually but there's no adaptive penalty structure like the GMAT has, and you can skip and return within each section. The integrated reasoning component is different from GMAT IR and I found it more intuitive given my work background.
I averaged 2 hours of prep daily for 7 weeks, mostly on data insights and verbal reasoning. Quant was what I feared most but it's genuinely more applied than GMAT quant — less abstract. If you're considering this as a GMAT alternative and have strong analytical skills from work, it's worth a serious look.
7 weeks sounds right. I did 8 weeks at about 90 minutes per day and felt well prepared. The verbal reading passages are dense and the answer choices are deliberately very close together — don't underestimate that section.
The data insights section is harder than it looks. I work in analytics and thought I'd coast through it, got humbled in my first practice set. Had to put in 3 extra weeks specifically on that section before feeling ready.
Took the EA after three failed GMAT attempts that never broke 680. Scored 155 on the EA after 6 weeks of prep. The format suited the way I think a lot better. Accepted at two target programs.