GRE

Well, well, well.  It is upon us!  The age of online, at-home testing has dawned.  Yesterday I posted an article about online testing for the GRE and made some predictions about the how soon GMAC would roll out online testing for the GMAT and, sure enough, the announcement came less than 24 hours later!  This may seem like a very minor thing in the panicked milieu of the moment and with the coronavirus outbreak in full swing, but for the thousands of people who have poured their time and money into preparing for the GMAT with no hope in sight of being able to actually take the test and move on in their lives, this is a VERY big deal.

I don’t want to rehash what I wrote in the aforementioned post, but I just continue to be amazed that this is a reality and that both GMAC and ETS have been able to roll out online testing so quickly during this crisis.  

One question that remains is whether this will be an “interim” offer (this is how it is worded on GMAC’s website) or whether it will be here to stay.  Obviously the word interim suggests that it is temporary, and maybe it will be, but I just don’t see how you go back, once you have made this a reality.  It would be like telling people to continue to only send physical letters once they have been exposed to email.   I might be wrong about this, but I don’t know how you reverse the flow of progress!

The one interesting thing I will note that relates to this is that a couple of the people I am currently tutoring who I told about the prospect of online testing for the GMAT responded by suggesting that they might not want to take the GMAT at home and would prefer to be in a test center where the environment feels more authentic, etc.  But I have to believe that there will easily be enough demand to make online testing for the GMAT and GRE a permanent reality, assuming that GMAC and ETS are willing to allow it to remain so.  Only time will tell!

ETS just announced that the GRE can now be taken at home!!!  The question is, when will GMAC follow suit and allow test takers to take the GMAT at home as well?  The short answer:  probably soon, if the GMAT has the pieces in place!

First, let me start by saying that I was amazed to see this last night.  In fact, I woke up this morning and wondered if I dreamt it.  Seriously.  I had to look on the Internet and read it again to believe that it was not a figment of my imagination.  I just recently wrote another blog post about how Covid-19 was likely to change the landscape of standardized testing and how tests would soon be administered at home.  I also knew (and mentioned this in the aforementioned post) that ETS and GMAC had done research into at-home testing, but the fact the ETS was ready and able to roll this out right in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak is just astounding.  

There are a lot of hoops that one must jump through to be able to take the test at home, so before you get too excited, it’s worth reading the specifications for at-home testing on the GRE website (you need to have a windows-based computer, a webcam that can accommodate 360 degree views of the room, a marker and whiteboard, among other things).  But I am nevertheless in a state of shock with this new development and am now obviously waiting for the GMAT to follow suit.

For the uninitiated (and I just had to explain this to someone I am tutoring who, to my surprise, did not realize this), the GRE and GMAT compete with each other.  ETS has lead a somewhat successful campaign to draw test-takers, and therefore business, away from the GMAT and to the GRE (and it has done the same with the LSAT more recently as well).  And the move to at-home testing is such a game changer that it is only a matter of time before GMAC starts to offer in-home testing for the GMAT.   

So many of the people I am currently tutoring are now dealing with the uncertainty of when they will be able to take the GMAT that it is really wreaking havoc on their GMAT prep plans.   For the people who are not looking to test in the next few months it’s not a big deal, but I have several students who were hoping to take it in the next month, and not knowing whether it will be possible to take the GMAT in 1 month or 2 or 3 just makes it very hard to know how to prepare and how to pace the study process.   In fact, just today I already had 2 conversations with students about the possibility of taking the GRE (either switching to it entirely or taking it as a sort of “add on” where they still prepare for the GMAT but do a little GRE prep on the side and just take it to see what happens…at the very worst it’s good practice taking a standardized test under stressful conditions).

Regarding the possibility of at-home testing for the GMAT, the only question is whether GMAC has all the pieces in place to be able to roll this out soon.  Again, I know the company was looking into this, but if it is not far enough along in the process I could imagine that it might take some time to make at-home testing a reality.   But it’s a virtual certainty that it will happen at some point, and it’s helpful to remember that GMAC is a business and that, like other businesses, it needs to survive and needs people to be taking the GMAT to do so!  So even if GMAC doesn’t have all of its ducks in a row, I’d imagine it will get them lined up ASAP, in order to be back in business!

One final aside I thought of…even with all the contraction that is happening in the economy, clearly there will be new and unforeseen opportunities created for businesses and, in turn, for people looking for employment.  Well guess what?  One just came online.  How about being a proctor for people taking at-home versions on the GRE and GMAT?!!!   I don’t know exactly how the proctoring will work, but even if a single person can proctor several people at a time, you are still going to need a whole cohort of proctors for all the people who will now be taking the test at home!  So for some of the people who are losing jobs in other places, this presents a new opportunity for employment…and as an added bonus you get to work from home!!!