An essay section will be added to the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) next fall in an effort to emphasize the importance of communication skills in business.

Begining in October, students taking the GMAT will write two half-hour essays in addition to the restructured multiple choice section, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) has announced.

The exam currently consists of three half-hour math sections. There is also an additional half-hour experimental section which does not count towards student scores.

Under the changes, the exam sections will be cut to 25 minutes each. But the new essays will stretch the exam time to four hours.

Initially, the change should not significantly affect test-takers, Stanford Business School Associate Dean George Parker said yesterday.

"The first time through we are going to have to learn how to interpret the scores," Parker said. "We are not going to rely on the scores in place of the essays we request until we see how their grading relates to our evaluations."

The effect of the change will be minimal at Harvard Business School, which does not require the GMAT for admission.

Brett Gordon, executive director of the Princeton Review of Boston, said he thinks that adding an essay will not improve the test.

"The addition of the essay will add a lot of undue anxiety without making a real difference," Gordon said.

And Gordon said that students for whom English is a second language will be hurt by the change.

The grading criteria for the essays have yet to be announced, Gordon said, so it is difficult to tell how the addition will change the tests.

But if the essays are graded in 90 seconds like those on the MCAT, neatness willcount for a lot more than content.

The change will be significant only ifadmissions officers at business schools read theessays, Gordon said.

"I recognize the need for communication skillsin business, but the essays are not an accurate orfair way of testing for them," Gordon said. "Theessays will give people taking coaching classes aneven greater advantage because the essays areincredibly coachable.