Ask a finance student which admissions test they are taking and the answer is almost always the GMAT. Ask why, and you get some version of "it's the business school test." That logic is out of date. Of the top 20 finance masters programs in the Financial Times ranking, 16 accept the GRE as a full alternative to the GMAT. If you have never seriously looked at the GRE, you are choosing a test by default, not by decision.
What the GRE actually is
The GRE, short for Graduate Record Examination, is administered by ETS. Historically it was the entry test for general graduate school: PhDs, public policy, engineering masters. Business schools ran their own test, the GMAT, and the two worlds rarely mixed. That wall came down years ago. The GRE is now accepted across MBA and specialized masters admissions, including the large majority of top finance programs.
The test has three sections:
- Verbal Reasoning, scored 130 to 170. Reading comprehension, text completion, sentence equivalence. Heavier on vocabulary than GMAT verbal.
- Quantitative Reasoning, scored 130 to 170. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry, data analysis. No data sufficiency format, and an on-screen calculator is provided.
- Analytical Writing, scored 0 to 6. One essay task, scored separately from the two main sections.
ETS shortened the test in 2023 and it now runs just under two hours. Your result is two numbers out of 170 plus a writing score, and admissions teams know exactly how to read them.
The case for taking it seriously
Start with the headline number: 16 of the top 20 FT-ranked finance masters programs accept the GRE as a full alternative to the GMAT. This is not a grudging concession buried in an FAQ. Several of these schools publish concrete GRE expectations, which tells you they see real volumes of GRE applicants:
- Oxford Saïd: the 2024 class averaged 170 on GRE quant. That is the maximum score, so a near-perfect quant result is simply the norm there.
- Imperial College Business School: states that a GRE quant score of 159 "can add weight" to an application.
- Luiss Business School: requires a minimum of 157 out of 170 on both the Quantitative and Verbal sections.
- Vlerick Business School: accepts a GRE of 157 verbal and 158 quant as an alternative to its in-house admissions test.
It is not universal. A couple of top 20 schools, Skema Business School and Tsinghua SEM among them, do not mention the GRE in their process at all. So the test can cover most of your list, but you still need to check each school individually before booking anything.
Beyond acceptance, there is the format argument. Plenty of students find the GRE easier to prepare for than the GMAT. The quant section tests the underlying math more directly: there is no data sufficiency question type to learn from scratch, you get a calculator, and you can skip questions and return to them within a section. On the verbal side, a large share of the difficulty is vocabulary, which is tedious but learnable through pure repetition. None of this makes the GRE easy. It makes it predictable, and predictable tests reward structured prep.
How finance programs read a GRE score
Look at the benchmarks above and the pattern is obvious: quant leads. Oxford publishes a quant average. Imperial names a quant threshold. Finance masters programs are screening for one thing first, whether you can handle a quantitative curriculum at speed, and the GRE quant score is their proxy for it.
That does not mean verbal is ignored. Luiss sets its 157 minimum on both sections, and a weak verbal score raises questions for programs taught in English. Treat verbal as a floor to clear, not a score to maximize. Analytical Writing is rarely decisive, but do not hand in a score low enough to become a talking point. In practice: put most of your prep hours into quant, keep verbal respectable, and do not overthink the essay.
A realistic prep timeline
For most finance students, 8 to 12 weeks at around 8 to 10 hours per week is enough. You are usually not learning new math, you are relearning speed and format. A workable structure:
- Week 1: take a full official practice test cold. This is your baseline. Review every error slowly, sorting careless mistakes from genuine gaps.
- Weeks 2 to 5: rebuild content topic by topic on quant, and start a daily vocabulary habit for verbal. Untimed accuracy first.
- Weeks 6 to 8: timed section practice. Keep an error log and drill the question types that keep costing you.
- Final 2 weeks: second full official practice test under real conditions, patch the last gaps, then sit the exam.
Two useful policy facts: you can retake the GRE after 21 days, up to five times in a rolling 12 months, and ScoreSelect lets you choose which scores schools see. A bad first attempt is recoverable and invisible.
The resources worth your time, in this order
1. ETS's own free materials
Start at the source: ets.org/gre. ETS provides genuinely free official practice tools, most importantly the POWERPREP practice tests, which use the real interface, real question style, and real scoring. These are the only fully authentic practice tests that exist, and they are free. Use one as your diagnostic and save one for your final dress rehearsal. There is no reason to touch anything else before this.
2. Established free educators
Keep the list short and stick to names with a track record:
- Khan Academy: ETS itself points to Khan Academy for quant content review. If a topic is rusty, this is where you rebuild it.
- GregMat: widely used structured study plans and question walkthroughs, with a large amount of free material on YouTube. Particularly strong on strategy for both sections.
- Magoosh's free GRE content: the YouTube channel and blog cover question types and common traps clearly, without requiring the paid product.
3. One paid purchase
If you are aiming for a high score, buy ETS's own official prep materials, the Official GRE Super Power Pack or the equivalent current official guide bundle. It is the only book set built from real retired GRE questions, and practicing on authentic questions matters more than any third-party trick. It is worth the money. Buy official before you buy anything else.
4. Your university library
Before spending anything, check your university library. Most carry current GRE prep books, including the official guides, and a borrowed copy scores exactly the same as a bought one.
Check the exact policy before you book
The GRE opens the door at 16 of the top 20 finance masters programs, but the details vary: Luiss sets hard minimums on both sections, Imperial publishes a soft quant benchmark, Vlerick treats it as a substitute for its own test, and a few schools do not take it at all. Before you pay a test fee, confirm what your specific targets require. OffCycle maintains a full comparison of the exact GMAT and GRE policy for all 20 top-ranked programs on our masters comparison page. Check it first, then book the test that actually fits your school list.