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.
Just hit 148 on my last practice set, which honestly felt like a turning point since I'd been stuck in the low 140s for two weeks. The quant section was killing me at first but I've been grinding through a lot of practice problems including some from free ea quantitative problems question and answers and it's finally clicking. Planning to sit the real thing in about three weeks.
Good luck to everyone else in the middle of prep right now. It's a weird test to train for since it's shorter than the GMAT but the IR section still catches you off guard if you didn't prep for it specifically.
I actually failed my first attempt — ended up with a 143 and honestly wasn't even sure what went wrong. Looking back, I'd spent almost all my prep time on IR and completely neglected quant, figuring my finance background would carry me. It didn't. The second time around I went hard on free ea quantitative problems question and answers and drilled data sufficiency specifically because that's where I kept losing time.
The other thing I changed was pacing. First attempt I second-guessed myself constantly and ran out of time on the back half. Second attempt I committed to answers faster and finished with a few minutes to spare. Scored a 151 on the retake which got me where I needed to go. If you bombed a first attempt don't panic, it's very retakeable once you actually know where your gaps are.
Just hit 148 on my most recent practice test, which felt huge because I was stuck in the low 140s for two weeks. The quant section was killing me until I started drilling consistently with free ea quantitative problems question and answers — honestly it's the repetition that clicked things for me, not any fancy strategy.
Planning to sit the real exam in about three weeks. Nervous but I think I'm close. What score did you need for your programs?
I almost bailed after week three. The integrated reasoning section was destroying me and I genuinely thought I wasn't cut out for this. But honestly the turning point was just accepting that I wasn't going to feel ready -- I scheduled the test anyway and that deadline forced me to actually commit.
Ended up with a 149 which wasn't pretty but it worked for the programs I was targeting. If you're feeling like it's not clicking, don't freak out. The EA isn't about being brilliant, it's about not overthinking it. I spent way too long second-guessing answers I had right the first time.
I failed my first attempt and honestly wasn't surprised in hindsight. I'd gone in after only three weeks of casual prep thinking the EA would be easier than the GMAT, which is technically true, but I still treated the IR section like it didn't matter. Big mistake. IR is like half the score. I got a 141 and felt pretty demoralized.
Second time around I flipped my focus completely. I spent way less time on quant drills and almost all my energy on multi-source reasoning and graphics interpretation. The key thing I changed was actually reading the explanations when I got practice questions wrong, not just noting the right answer and moving on. Sounds obvious but I wasn't doing it before. Went from 141 to 150 in about five weeks of focused prep. If you've already taken it once and bombed, don't retake it the same way you studied the first time.