The new online GMAT

You can take the GMAT online at home or any other place you choose, given that this place satisfies the conditions imposed by the test proctors. These conditions are imposed in order to ensure that you will enjoy no unfair advantage during the exam. You must pass an initial 15-min verification of your environment and leave your web camera turned on at all times during the exam so that the remote proctors can monitor you and your environment.

If you wish to take the online GMAT but have no adequate space, you can even choose to take the online GMAT at a test-center.

The online exam is identical to the one you take at the test center, but GMAC offers some incentives to encourage you to take the online GMAT:

  • first, you will be able to keep SEPARATE records for your online exams and for your test-center exams. In other words, your online exam report will NOT be shown in the report for the GMATs that you take at test-centers, and vice-versa. So you have the option to use the online GMAT score only if it is better than your test-center scores, or your best test-center score otherwise. Moreover, you can choose WHICH of at most two online scores you wish to send to schools.
  • second, you can send your online GMAT score report to any number of schools you wish, free of charge. For the test-center GMAT, there is a fee for each additional school to which you decide to send your score report after the test.
  • third, you can use your OWN PHYSICAL WHITEBOARD. This physical whiteboard can be BIG, up to 30cmx50cm, and you may use two whiteboard marker pens and one whiteboard eraser. If you're like me, this is perhaps the biggest advantage of the online GMAT. The test-center scratchpad is quite a hindrance. If you don't like a physical whiteboard, you can use an online whiteboard.

    • You can take the online GMAT at most TWICE -- that's a lifetime limit, at least for now, but rules may change.