When Should I Take the GMAT?
Before we look at when you should take the GMAT, let’s figure out when you can take the GMAT. There are a few rules that you can’t break, no matter what.
First of all, your official GMAT scores are valid for exactly five years, so you should take the test within five years of your planned application date. If you don’t, you’ll need to take it again.
You should also take it before you apply to schools (in most circumstances)! If you’re applying during the first round, that usually means that you should take it by September or October. If you’re waiting for the second round, your deadline could be anywhere from October to March. Some schools are outliers, with very early or very late application deadlines: make yourself a spreadsheet of deadlines early in the process to avoid nasty surprises.
Finally, your GMAT schedule is limited by when the test is offered. Unlike other tests, such as the LSAT, the GMAT is offered year-round on every day of the week. However, testing centers have limited seats, and some centers and dates fill up quickly. Even if you don’t know exactly when you should take the test, keep an eye on the availability at your testing center.
It’s the height of the application season as I write this, and in Seattle, I only have one option for a weekend testing date within the next two months. But if I’m willing to take the test on a weekday, I could do it as early as three or four days from now. The more constrained your schedule is, the earlier you should schedule your GMAT.
Should I Take the GMAT Twice?
As long as you follow those guidelines, you’re free to take the test whenever you’d like. So, when should you do it if you want to maximize your score and minimize your stress?
Start by identifying your earliest application deadline. This is the absolute latest date when you should take the GMAT, but it’s probably not the best day to do it! To cut down on stress, you should take the test at least a few days before your earliest deadline. And more importantly, you should plan on taking the GMAT twice.
The GMAC itself has actually studied the effect of retaking the GMAT. Although this study is old—it uses data from 2002 to 2004—it shows that taking the GMAT a second time typically results in a higher score. 68.7% of retakers improved their scores, and the average score change across all retakers was an increase of about 30 points. That could mean the difference between a 590 and a 620, or a 670 and a 700. Nearly 40% of test-takers improved their score by 50 points or more.
So you should definitely plan to take the test twice. The rules say that you can only take it once every 16 calendar days, to make sure you aren’t exposed to the same questions more than once. Since you may not be able to register for two test dates exactly 16 days apart, a good guideline is to plan for at least 20 days between attempts.
—————————————————– first GMAT ——————- second GMAT —first application due!
That means you should take the GMAT, at the latest, three weeks before your first application is due. But there are a number of reasons you might choose to take it a little earlier.
Should I Take the GMAT Earlier?
There might not be a perfect time to take the GMAT. However, it’s possible that taking it earlier will get you a better score. You want to study for the GMAT at a time when you’re ready to study intelligently and efficiently, and that time might or might not be just before your application deadlines.
Even if you don’t feel stressed out, you’re under a certain amount of stress just from going about your daily life. And when you’re under stress, it’s harder to form memories.
If you have a lot going on in your life, it’ll also be hard to make time to study! Studying for the GMAT can take up to 20 hours a week—as much as a part-time job. It’s hard enough to balance that with full-time work and personal relationships. It’s even harder if you’re also traveling or pursuing goals outside of work. And you can’t always just draw out your studies: after a couple of months of studying, you might find yourself totally burned out.
The solution is to plan your GMAT studies for a time when you’ll be able to devote your full attention to studying. If August and September are your busiest months at work, or if your in-laws are coming for an extended visit in October, you might want to take the test earlier in the year. If you have travel coming up, be realistic about whether you should take the test before your trip or whether you should put off your studies until afterwards. Nobody will ever be able to study for the GMAT perfectly, but in a perfect world, you’d be able to take it at a time when you could really concentrate on it fully. If that time is a little earlier in the year, that’s totally fine: it just means that you planned ahead.
However, if you anticipate needing to take time off from studying due to work or travel, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You’ll forget some of what you’ve learned, but studies have actually shown that forgetting plays a huge role in learning. Intentionally stepping away from your studies for a while, then going back and reviewing what you learned beforehand, can help you form stronger memories.
Should I Take the GMAT Right After My GMAT Class?
Are you taking a Manhattan Prep GMAT course, or are you considering it? This plays into when you should take the test. Our GMAT courses are nine weeks long, and some courses will have a break week in the middle. And this might come as a surprise, but you shouldn’t take the test as soon as your course (or self-study program) ends.
Our GMAT course will expose you to everything that can show up on the test and will teach you how to solve every type of problem and how to study effectively. It’ll also help you make a lot of progress towards deeply understanding all of the GMAT content. However, everyone is different, and you’ll probably find that you want to review certain areas after the course is over. Even if you didn’t struggle with any content during the class, reviewing helps you form stronger memories that will serve you well on test day. It also helps to have a few days, at least, to mentally relax and wind down before taking the test! Taking a GMAT course is hard on your brain, and you want to go into the test relaxed and ready to do your best.
So, here’s a timeline if you’re taking a GMAT course!
—–|course: 9-10 weeks| self-study 2 weeks | relax & review 3 days | test 1 |===20 days == | test 2| =first deadline!
When Should I Take the GMAT If I Don’t Have a Deadline?
Remember, you can take this test as much as five years in advance! A number of our students are currently in college—they know that they want to get an MBA eventually, so they’re planning ahead to avoid having to study for the GMAT while working. That’s a smart move, but it makes it less clear when you should take the test.
If you have the luxury of not having a deadline, there are two things you can do. One is to just set a deadline for yourself. Go ahead and schedule your first GMAT about 3 months from now. Knowing that the test is coming up can be a huge motivator! The other option is to watch and wait. If you go this route, you should take a practice test every two or three weeks, regularly. Once your practice tests are consistently close to your GMAT goal score, you’re ready to register for the test. A good rule of thumb is to wait until you’ve scored within 30 points of your goal score twice in a row. And if it just doesn’t seem to be happening? It may be time for a change in your studies, such as signing up for a GMAT Complete Course or GMAT tutoring.
Putting It All Together
Let’s finish up with two example GMAT timelines.
Priya is applying to Harvard, Berkeley, and Stanford in round 1. (Ambitious!) Of these three schools, the earliest application deadline is Harvard’s, on September 5. She knows that she’ll be traveling for work from August 28 to September 2, so she decides to take the GMAT for the final time a few days before leaving, on August 25. She also has a major deadline on August 20, so she gives herself some extra time between her first GMAT and second GMAT, just in case she gets busy. She’s already scoring in the 40s in Verbal on practice tests, so she decides to mostly study Quant, by signing up for GMAT Interact. Here’s her timeline:
June 1 – July 14: complete GMAT Interact
July 14-28: review Interact lessons and work on the Advanced Quant book
July 29-31: relax and get ready for test day!
August 1: first GMAT
August 25: second GMAT
September 5: first application deadline
Mario is in a different situation: he’s a senior in college right now, and while he knows he wants to get an MBA eventually, he doesn’t plan to apply until at least 2021, and he hasn’t yet decided on schools. He wants to study for the GMAT during the summer after college, before he starts his new job in late September. Mario has always struggled with math, and he knows he’ll need some extra time both before and after the course to warm up and review.
May 19-May 30: review Foundations of GMAT Math
May 31: GMAT complete course starts
July 26: GMAT complete course ends
July 29: practice GMAT
August 12: practice GMAT
August 26: take the GMAT?
Mario will base his exact schedule on his practice test performance, but he now has a target test date for his first attempt. If he does really well on his first practice test, he might take the GMAT earlier; if not, he might need a few more weeks. Either way, he should start right away if he wants to be done by September! ?
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Chelsey Cooley
is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington. Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master’s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170/170 on the GRE. Check out Chelsey’s upcoming GMAT prep offerings here.