GMAT Score Reporting

GMAT Scores and Score Reporting

As we’ve discussed, you’ll get a few scores on the GMAT: your Total Score with its subscores on Q and V, your AWA score, and your IR score. Here is how your score is generated and reported:

1. During the end of your test session, you will get a final chance to cancel your entire test. If you cancel, no score is generated and neither you nor anyone else will ever know how you did during that sitting. If you accept your score, you will see a “preliminary score” and your score, once finalized, will go on your record for the next 5 years.

2. If you accept and see your final score, it goes on your record. A GMAT score is valid for five years. Whenever you report a GMAT score, schools will see all your scores that are still valid. Schools generally will simply consider your highest score. However, if you have taken the test 4 or 5 or more times that is likely to be an area of some concern for admissions councils; in that case, they’ll still look at your highest score, but they may get the sense that you are in poor control of the MBA application process.

3. Your preliminary score will become official within 20 days. In practice, the official score will always be identical to the preliminary score. The schools you’ve chosen to receive the scores will get them within 20 days, so you’ll want to sit for the GMAT about 21 days prior to the application deadlines you are aiming for.

4. Up to 5 schools will get your scores for free. You select these schools when you sit for the exam. You should select 5 schools of interest to you regardless of how confident you feel about the exam or how certain you are of your target schools, since schools would see all valid scores if you send a score report later, anyway. If you want to send additional score reports to schools after your test day, you can do so on this page. The fee for additional reports is $28 per school.

Simple Advice

  • Don’t be surprised on test day when you are given a chance to cancel your score at the end. You should go ahead and accept your score regardless of how you feel you’ve done, because people tend to be unable to tell how well they have done. One exception: if you are violently ill or clearly not yourself during the test, you might as well cancel your score and schedule a retake.
  • Go into the test day with five schools you’re likely to apply to. You can select them to receive score reports without risk.