What is a good GMAT Focus score? Percentiles, sections, and class profiles

A good GMAT Focus score is the score your target programs need, so the number changes with your list of schools. GMAC’s percentile tables tell you how a score compares with other test takers, and each program’s class profile tells you where its recent students scored. This guide shows you how to read both, how your three section scores feed the total, and where the new GMAT Superscore fits.

Start with your programs, not a single number

No total counts as good everywhere. Programs differ in size, focus, and applicant pool, so the same score can sit above one program’s recent class and below another’s. Build your target from the programs you plan to apply to, and use percentiles to judge how far that target sits above the middle of the field.

How GMAT Focus percentiles work

A percentile compares your score with every score in GMAC’s sample. At the 75th percentile, you scored higher than about 75 percent of those test takers, and about 25 percent scored higher than you. GMAC’s current tables cover the period from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2026, and its total-score table draws on a sample of 509,182 scores with a mean of about 555.

GMAC’s 2021-2026 total-score table puts the main marks here:

• 565 sits at the 50th percentile, so a 565 beats about half of GMAC’s sample.
• 615 sits at the 75th percentile.
• 655 sits at the 90th percentile.
• 685 sits at the 95th percentile, and 705 sits at the 98th.
• GMAC rounds the table to whole percentages, so every total from 745 to 805 shows 100 percent.

Percentiles climb slowly near the top of the scale. A 50-point gain from 565 to 615 lifts you from the 50th percentile to the 75th, while the same 50 points from 655 to 705 lifts you only from the 90th to the 98th. Above the middle of the scale, the higher your target, the more score points each percentile point costs you.

Percentiles also move from year to year. GMAC updates the tables every year in the third quarter, so a 615 total that sat at the 76th percentile in the 2020-2025 tables sits at the 75th in the 2021-2026 tables. GMAX reproduces all four current tables on its GMAT Focus percentiles page at gmattrainer.com/gmat-focus-percentiles, where you can look up any total or section score.

How section scores and the total relate

GMAC scores Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Data Insights from 60 to 90 each and combines the three into a Total Score from 205 to 805. GMAC weights the sections equally, so a point in Data Insights counts as much toward your total as a point in Quant, and different mixes of section scores can produce the same total. Your official score report lists your total, your three section scores, and a percentile for each.

Each section has its own percentile table, and the tables do not line up. A section score of 80 sits at the 64th percentile in Quant, the 54th in Verbal, and the 83rd in Data Insights. To find your weakest section, compare your section percentiles, not your section scores.

GMAC’s section tables place these scores near the 75th and 90th percentiles:

• Quantitative Reasoning: 82 at the 75th percentile, 86 at the 91st.
• Verbal Reasoning: 82 at the 73rd percentile, 85 at the 93rd.
• Data Insights: 79 at the 76th percentile, 81 at the 88th.

Use these figures to read a practice result. A Verbal 82 and a Data Insights 82 look identical, yet the Data Insights score beats a larger share of test takers, so the Verbal score leaves you more room to gain.

How to read a program’s class profile

A program’s class profile describes its most recent entering class, and the profile shows you the scores that class earned. Read it on the school’s own website, with four questions in mind:

1. Where does the profile live? Search the school’s website for its class profile and open the page for the newest entering class. Use the school’s own figures, because a copy on another site can fall out of date.
2. Which statistic does it report? A profile may give a median, an average, a range for the middle of the class, or a low and a high. A median shows you where the middle student sits, and a range shows you the spread around it.
3. Which exam do the figures describe? If the profile reports scores from the GMAT 10th Edition, the older exam with a 200 to 800 scale, do not compare them with your Focus score directly. GMAC calls that comparison not meaningful and publishes concordance tables that line up the two editions score by score.
4. Which program and which year? Match the profile to the exact program you plan to apply to and to the newest class the school reports.

Then set your goal. Aim at or above the median or average of the programs you care about most, and treat the bottom of a reported range as a floor, not a target. Look up your goal in GMAC’s table so you know which percentile it demands.

Where the GMAT Superscore fits

GMAC announced the GMAT Superscore on June 15, 2026, and now adds it automatically to Official Score Reports. GMAC calculates it from your highest section scores across your valid attempts of the current edition and charges nothing extra for it. The Superscore carries no percentile ranking, you cannot opt out of sending it, and GMAC describes it as a supplementary signal rather than a replacement for the Total Score. Our guide to the GMAT Focus retake policy at gmattrainer.com/guides/gmat-focus-retake-policy covers the rules in full.

Each school decides how to use it. GMAC’s Superscore FAQ presents it to programs as an additional data point for admissions decisions, asks each school to work out how it fits the school’s own evaluation process, and offers sample wording for programs that consider it, programs still evaluating it, and programs that keep their focus on single-attempt scores. Before you plan a retake around your Superscore, read each program’s admissions pages for its policy.

Set your target in five steps

1. List your programs and write down each one’s median or average score from its own class profile.
2. Take the highest of those figures among the programs you care about most as your target total.
3. Look up that total in GMAC’s table to see its percentile, then take a full-length practice test to measure the gap.
4. Compare the section percentiles from your practice test and aim your study at the section with the lowest one.
5. Leave room for a second attempt. GMAC requires at least 16 days between attempts, so book your first test early enough that a retake still fits before your deadlines.

GMAX gives you practice in all three sections with an explanation after every answer. The free plan includes five practice questions and one rated match a day, so you can start on your weakest section today.