At-Home GMAT Testing

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!