????包括最高層在內的大多數GMAC員工都在弗吉尼亞州雷斯頓城鎮中心 (Reston Town Center)兩個安靜的樓層辦公，谷歌(Google)、勞斯萊斯(Rolls-Royce)和美國大學理事會(College Board)也在這棟現代化寫字樓中租用了辦公空間。辦公區燈火通明，除了一間咖啡廳和一個測試中心外，還有一個兩層的瀑布結構，它被建筑師稱為“紀念碑似的”開放式樓梯。

????一家非營利性組織能夠提供如此優厚的薪酬和待遇，主要是因為GMAC在管理學研究生項目入學考試領域占據著近乎壟斷的地位。“由于它的支撐行業不斷增長，這門生意一直非常健康，”達特茅斯學院(Dartmouth College)塔克商學院(Tuck School of Business)院長保羅?達諾斯解釋說。“想申請最好的商學院，就必須參加GMAT考試。但也有幾千家學院對這項考試沒有要求。問題是：商學院是否認為它有價值，特別是那些位于印度、中國和拉美，規模在未來會不斷增長的商學院？”

????事實上，許多成立時間不長、位于發展中經濟體的商學院并不要求申請人出示GMAT成績，而這項考試的高成本就是背后的原因之一。班加羅爾印度管理學院(Indian Institute of Management)院長德文納特?蒂魯伯蒂估計，在全球商業教育市場上，多達三分之二的項目對這項考試沒有要求。“GMAT考試太貴，缺乏親和力，”蒂魯伯蒂說。他指出，在印度更受歡迎的普通入學考試(CAT)的成本約為1,500盧比（約合25美元），而GMAT的考試費用約為1.5萬盧比。去年，近17.5萬名印度學生參加了CAT考試，2012年的這個數字為19.5萬，而當年參加 GMAT考試的印度學生僅有22,803人。

????一些商學院院長也表達了另一個憂慮：GMAT考試偏重于評估定量和口頭表達能力，但沒有衡量申請人身上其他一些同樣很重要的特質。“我認為我們現在需要不同的工具來識別不同的技能，”西班牙IE商學院(IE Business School)院長圣地亞哥?伊涅蓋茲?德佐伊諾說。“如果我們想吸引創業者，那么GMAT考試就沒有什么用處。它主要衡量的是分析能力，但如果你非常看重領導力、創新精神、創造力和企業家精神，GMAT考試沒辦法衡量這些特質。”

????這家組織的成功在很大程度上應該歸功于大衛?威爾遜，這位身材高瘦的加拿大會計師于1995年被聘為GMAC總裁兼CEO。威爾遜在職業生涯的早期曾是一位商學院教授，先后任教于德克薩斯大學(University of Texas)和哈佛商學院。1995年感恩節假期期間，威爾遜剛剛從安永會計師事務所(Ernst & Young)加拿大分公司專業發展主管任上提前退休，正在考慮重返教師崗位，突然接到了光輝國際咨詢顧問公司( Korn/Ferry)一位獵頭打來的電話。

????雖然GMAC在商學院圈子之外鮮為人知，但它的根源可以追溯到9家商學院的院長與ETS在1953年召開的一場會議。安排這場聚會是為了討論，是否可以創建一項考試，用以幫助商學院評估申請人在多大程度上具備成功完成商業和管理課程的潛力。但直到1970年，30家商學院的院長才發起了這家獨立于ETS的組織。然而，GMAC當時甚至連一個辦公的地方都沒有，這種狀況一直持續到1982年。就在這一年，GMAC聘請加州大學洛杉磯分校(UCLA)商學院副院長比爾?布勒扎姆勒出任組織的第一任總裁。他與5位員工在加州圣莫尼卡一間小辦公室辦公，主要工作是監督一家規模非常大的外部承包商，即ETS。布勒扎姆勒說：“許多人當時連GMAC是做什么的都不知道。”。

????擁有加州大學伯克利分校(UC-Berkeley)哈斯商學院(Haas School)MBA學位的威爾遜洞察到了GMAC的發展前景。輾轉洛杉磯、紐約和克利夫蘭等地、經過委員會成員的面試之后，他最終被聘為該組織第二任總裁兼CEO。現年72歲的威爾遜回憶說，這家組織在1995年的總收入大約為1,400萬美元，其中的1,230萬美元落入了ETS的口袋。“就連考試指南和預算都是ETS準備的，我們的資金也是由他們來管理，”他說。“我們每月都得向他們要大約20萬美元，用來支付工資和租金。”

????威爾遜把這家組織搬到了華盛頓郊區一個隸屬于弗吉尼亞州的辦公園區，還提出了一個由三方面組成的發展戰略：1)走向全球，2)所有業務層面均采用先進的技術，3)穩固GMAC的財務基礎。當時，GMAC的賬目資金幾乎只能滿足45天的營運需要。

????The majority of GMAC's staff, including its most senior officers, work on two quiet floors of a modern office park in Reston Town Center, Va., where Google (GOOG), Rolls-Royce, and the College Board also lease space. The brightly lit facility features what its architects call a "monumental" open staircase with a two-story waterfall structure, a cafe, and a testing center.

????Such generous compensation and treatment at a non-profit comes largely because of GMAC's near-monopoly on the entrance test for graduate business programs. "It has been a very healthy business because of the growth in the underlying industry," explains Paul Danos, dean of Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business. "People have to take the test to apply to the best business schools. But several thousand schools don't require the test. The question is: Do schools see a value in it, especially schools that will grow in India, China and Latin America?"

????In fact, many of the newer business schools in developing economies do not require the GMAT, in part because of the test's cost. Devanath Tirupati, dean of the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, estimates that as much as two-thirds of the global market for business programs doesn't require the exam. "The GMAT is too expensive and not accessible," says Tirupati, who notes that the cost of the more widely popular Common Admission Test (CAT) in India is about 1,500 rupees, or less than $25, compared to about 15,000 rupees for the GMAT. Nearly 175,000 students took the CAT last year in India. And 195,000 people took the CAT exam in 2012, while only 22,803 Indian residents took the GMAT that year.

????Some business deans also express concern that the GMAT fails to measure attributes of candidates that are as important as the quant and verbal skills the test assesses. "I think we need different instruments to identify different skills today," says Santiago Iniguez de Onzono, dean of IE Business School in Spain. "If we want to attract entrepreneurs, then the GMAT is useless. It mostly measures analytical skills, but if you think about the importance of leadership, innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship, the GMAT doesn't measure that."

????Much of the success of the organization behind the test can be attributed to David Wilson, a tall, lean Canadian accountant who was recruited to become president and CEO of GMAC in 1995. Wilson, who in his early career had been a B-school professor at the University of Texas and Harvard Business School, had just taken an early retirement from Ernst & Young. He had left his job as national director of professional development and was thinking of returning to teaching when he got a call from a Korn/Ferry headhunter during the Thanksgiving Day holiday in 1995.

????Though GMAC was little known outside the business school world, its early roots could be traced to a meeting between nine business school deans and the Educational Testing Service in 1953. The pow-wow was arranged to discuss the possibility of an exam that would assess applicants on their potential for success in business and management courses. But it wasn't until 1970 that the deans of 30 graduate business schools launched the organization as independent from ETS. GMAC, however, didn't even have an office until 1982, when the council hired its first president, Bill Broesamle, then an associate dean at UCLA's business school. He worked out of a small office in Santa Monica, Calif. with five employees who largely oversaw one very large external contractor, the Educational Testing Service. "Many people didn't know what GMAC was," says Broesamle.

????Wilson, who has an MBA from UC-Berkeley's Haas School, saw the promise of the opportunity, interviewed with board members in Los Angeles, New York, and Cleveland, and was eventually offered the job to become the second president and CEO of the organization. Now 72 years old, Wilson, recalls that the organization's total revenues in 1995 were about $14 million, of which $12.3 million went to ETS. "Even the guidebooks and budget was prepared by ETS and they managed our money, too," he says. "We would ask for a couple of hundred thousand every month to pay for payroll and our lease."

????Wilson moved the organization to an office park in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Virginia and set out a three-pillar strategy for growth: 1) To go global, 2) To embrace technology in all aspects of the business, and 3) To put GMAC on a solid financial footing. Back then, the organization had little more than 45 days of cash to run its business.