The History of the GMAT [MBA Friday Facts]

Updated November 19, 2019 Updated November 19, 2019

Today marks the launch of a new blog series, MBA Friday Facts. The goal is to provide you with some interesting MBA facts that you can share with others, whether it's at an MBA event or a cocktail party. Next month marks a historical milestone in the history of the GMAT, so we thought we'd share some other important moments in GMAT history:

Even though the first MBA program debuted at the Harvard Business School in 1908, there wasn't an MBA entry exam until 1954.

The GMAT was created in 1953 when business school deans met with Educational Testing Service (the company that produces the SAT and GRE) in order to develop a test that could predict how an MBA candidate would perform in business and management courses.

The GMAT was originally called the Admissions Test for Graduate Business Study (ATGBS).

The first Admissions Test for Graduate Business Study was administered to 2,900 test takers in 1954. Only 10 schools received ATGSB scores.

The Graduate Management Admission Council wasn't formed until 1970. Like the GMAT, GMAC started under another name -- the Graduate Business Admission Council. The name was changed in 1976 -- the same year that the Admissions Test for Graduate Business Study was renamed the Graduate Management Admission Test.

International member schools were first admitted into GMAC in 1995. INSEAD and London Business School were the first international member schools.

The Analytical Writing section, which will be shortened due to the new GMAT format, made its debut in 1992.

The GMAT became computer adaptive in 1998.

During the first 50 years of the GMAT (1954-2004), the GMAT was administered a total of 200,000 times.

GMAC ended its relationship with Educational Testing Service in 2005.

In 2008, there was a GMAT cheating scandal when Scoretop.com sold access to GMAT questions. GMAC was able to shut down the site, but business schools cancelled GMAT scores for 84 applicants and students who contributed or used the GMAT questions on Scoretop.

In response to the cheating scandal, GMAC began making test takers participate in palm vein scans in order to ensure that they weren't being paid to take the GMAT for other applicants. Palm vein scanners take a picture of the blood coursing through your hands; like fingerprints, this image is unique to each individual. The first widespread use of palm scanning was at Japanese ATM machines. Palm vein scanning began at GMAT test centers in Indian and Korea in the summer of 2008.