GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment: What Happened to the Essay Section

Quick Answer

Key Takeaways

• The GMAT Focus Edition launched on 7 November 2023 without the AWA, and was the only version available from 1 February 2024.
• Current format: 64 questions, three sections of 45 minutes each, scored on a 205 to 805 scale instead of the old 200 to 800.
• GMAC filled the gap in July 2024 with the Business Writing Assessment, a separate 30-minute test scored 0 to 6, priced at USD 30 and later free.
• The Business Writing Assessment platform retired on 4 July 2026, with the last sittings on 30 June 2026 and no named successor.
• Harvard Business School still accepts a GRE score, a GMAT 10th Edition score, or an English-language test score as proof of writing ability.
• SP Jain School of Global Management requires shortlisted Global MBA applicants to sit an Essay and Case Analysis Discussion Paper, so writing gets examined by the college rather than by GMAC.

Introduction

You've bought a GMAT prep book, opened it up, and chapter one is telling you to budget half an hour for an essay. That chapter is out of date. The GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment hasn't been on the exam since late 2023, yet it's still sitting in old study guides, YouTube walkthroughs and coaching-centre handouts across India. What makes the question genuinely confusing is that the writing requirement didn't vanish from MBA admissions. It moved, then moved again. For a while GMAC sold a standalone writing test, and that has now closed too. If Dubai or Abu Dhabi is on your shortlist, the useful question isn't whether the AWA exists. It's who will ask you to write, and at what point in the process.

Is the GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment Still on the Exam?

It isn't. The AWA was one of four sections on the classic GMAT. You got 30 minutes, one short argument with weak logic in it, and a blank screen to type on.

Your own opinion on the topic didn't matter. The job was to find the gaps in the reasoning. A prompt might have read like a café manager's memo: the Jumeirah branch installed free wifi last year, sales rose 20%, so wifi should go into all twelve branches to lift sales 20% company-wide. You wouldn't argue for or against wifi. You'd point out that a new metro station could explain the sales rise just as well, that twelve branches don't share one branch's customers, and that the memo never mentions what wifi costs.

Scoring worked differently from the rest of the exam. Two readers graded the essay from 0 to 6 in half-point steps, and one of those readers was sometimes a computer rather than a person. A 5.0 and a 4.5 averaged out to 4.75, reported as 5.0. That number sat on your score report next to the 200 to 800 total, never inside it. Strong writing didn't turn a 700 into a 705.

Then GMAC rebuilt the exam. The Focus Edition arrived on 7 November 2023 with the essay gone, Integrated Reasoning folded into a new Data Insights section, geometry cut from Quant, and Sentence Correction dropped from Verbal. The classic version stayed bookable until 31 January 2024, after which Focus was the only GMAT on offer, and by mid-2024 GMAC had quietly dropped the "Focus Edition" label and gone back to calling it simply the GMAT.

So if someone tells you the GMAT has four sections, they're describing an exam you can't sit.

The stated logic was that business schools wanted a shorter test weighted towards data literacy and critical reasoning, and cutting a 30-minute essay took the biggest single bite out of the running time. Plenty of admissions offices clearly disagreed, which is what the next two years were about. For the current section-by-section breakdown, the GMAT Focus Edition exam pattern guide walks through question counts and timing.

Classic GMAT vs the GMAT You'll Actually Sit

The current GMAT differs from the classic version in four ways, not one. That matters if you're studying from a second-hand book.

Section structure as published for the 2026 exam.

Use that table to check your study material. Skip any chapter on essays, geometry or Sentence Correction. And if a mock test gives you a score out of 800, it's built on a scale the exam no longer uses.

Comparing an old score to a new one only works through percentiles, not raw numbers. Our breakdown of how GMAT Focus scoring works shows the conversion.

The Business Writing Assessment, and Why It Closed

Business schools pushed back on losing the essay and GMAC responded within nine months. The trigger was generative AI. Admissions teams could no longer tell whether a polished personal statement reflected the applicant's own writing, so a handful of programmes asked GMAC for a proctored, unaided sample.

The result was the Business Writing Assessment, launched in July 2024. Thirty minutes, one argument to critique, scored 0 to 6, taken online from anywhere, priced at USD 30 and made free from October 2025. Same skill, different examiner. Harvard Business School required it of GMAT candidates invited to interview, and MIT Sloan said some interviewees would need it as well.

That arrangement has now ended.

Timeline of GMAT writing-assessment changes, 2023 to 2026.

So what satisfies a writing requirement now? Harvard's published rule is that a valid GRE score, a GMAT 10th Edition score, or an English-language test score all count, with the last option open only to candidates whose degree wasn't taught solely in English. GRE candidates were never caught by any of this, because the GRE kept its writing section. And a classic GMAT score stays valid for five years from the test date, so anyone who sat it in 2023 still has usable writing evidence until 2028.

Note: GMAC hasn't named a BWA successor. If a school's application page still refers to the BWA by name, that page is stale. Email the admissions office and ask what they'll accept for the current cycle rather than assuming the old instruction holds.

Do UAE Business Schools Want a Writing Score?

Some do, but they mostly generate the writing task themselves rather than asking GMAC for one. This is the part that gets missed in the general GMAT coverage, and it changes what you should prepare.

SP Jain School of Global Management is the clearest example. Its Global MBA accepts GMAT, GRE, CAT, SPJAT or NMAT as the aptitude test, and then puts every shortlisted candidate through an Essay and Case Analysis Discussion Paper plus a Business Creativity Test before the panel interview. The Executive MBA follows the same aptitude-test policy, with a minimum of three years' full-time work experience. Nobody is asking for a 0 to 6 essay score there. They're asking you to write, in a room, on their prompt.

Across the rest of the UAE the picture is looser. Many private universities in Dubai and Sharjah run on transcripts, a statement of purpose and an interview, with no standardised test at all. Less to prepare, and also less to stand out with. The UAE universities accepting GMAT scores page lists which side each institution falls on.

One thing to plan for: timing. These writing tasks come up after shortlisting, when you're already sorting out visa paperwork and fee deadlines. Keep a week free for it.

Analytical Writing Assessment GMAT Examples: Still Worth Practising?

Only if you're applying somewhere that runs its own written round, and even then, not in the old format. Searching for analytical writing assessment GMAT examples will hand you hundreds of pages of prompts about subway fares, magazine circulation and fitness centres, harvested from the pre-2024 official guides. Those prompts test a real skill. They just no longer feed into any GMAT score.

Here's where the skill actually lives on the current exam. Verbal Reasoning still asks you to weaken, strengthen and evaluate arguments, and Data Insights asks you to judge whether the evidence in front of you supports a claim. That's the same reasoning the AWA measured, minus the typing. If you liked the argument-critique format, treat Critical Reasoning practice as its natural home rather than writing timed essays nobody will read.

Two situations justify keeping the essay drills. First, if a college on your list runs a written admissions round, as SP Jain does. Second, if you're weighing the GRE, where Analytical Writing survives as a single 30-minute "Analyze an Issue" task scored 0 to 6.

That second point matters more than it looks. The GRE gives strong writers a scored, portable way to prove it. The GMAT no longer does. Worth weighing before you book, and whether the GMAT is required for your MBA covers where UAE programmes stand on accepting either.

Where Study From UAE Fits Into This

Checking test rules college by college is slow work. Every university puts them on a different page, in different words, and the pages change between intakes without anyone telling you.

That's the job we've taken on. Our GMAT section covers who can register, where the test centres are in India and the UAE, what the fee comes to after GST, how many retakes you get, and which UAE universities ask for a score at all. If you haven't decided whether to sit the test yet, start with the GMAT exam guide for UAE applicants.

You can also compare UAE universities side by side, check fee ranges before you pay any application charges, and follow the MBA admission process in Dubai step by step. All of it sits in one place, which is the difference between an evening of tab-switching and twenty minutes.

One thing we can't do is decide for a college. Nobody can promise you a seat or a scholarship, and you should be sceptical of anyone who does. Our counsellors will check the current requirements for your shortlist and tell you whether the GMAT is worth your time. They'll also flag the colleges that make you write an essay or analyse a case before the interview, which is often none of them.

Conclusion

Pull up the programme page for each college on your shortlist and check two lines: which aptitude tests they accept, and whether shortlisted candidates face a written or case-based round. That takes twenty minutes and tells you more than any general article about the GMAT analytical writing assessment can, because the writing requirement now varies by institution rather than sitting inside the exam. If you'd rather not read six admissions pages yourself, our counsellors can check the current test and writing requirements for your shortlist and tell you what you actually need to prepare.