In 1953, the organization now called the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) began as an association of nine business schools, whose goal was to develop a standardized test to help business schools select qualified applicants. In the first year it was offered, the assessment (now known as the Graduate Management Admission Test), was taken just over 2,000 times; in recent years, it has been taken more than 200,000 times annually. Initially used in admissions by 54 schools, the test is now used by more than 1,500 schools and 1,800 programs worldwide.
After 2005, GMAC is administrating the exam. On January 1, 2006, GMAC transitioned vendors to a combination of ACT Inc, which develops the test questions and CAT software, and Pearson Vue, which delivers the exam at testing centers worldwide.
On June 23, 2008, a cheating scandal was acknowledged by GMAC involving some 6,000 test takers who subscribed to the website ScoreTop.com and may have viewed "live" questions in-use on the GMAT. GMAC has announced severe measures that include invalidating the scores of subscribers, notifying schools who have received their scores, and banning them from future tests. On June 27, GMAC reassured applicants that only those who knowingly cheated using Scoretop's website would be affected. The Wall Street Journal later reported that the scores of 84 test takers were canceled in the wake of the scandal.
Also, in response to cases of "proxy" or "ringer" test-taking, where students pay somebody else to take the test on their behalf, GMAC is going to be introducing Fujitsu PalmSecure (the palm vein scanning technology) at testing centers this year. Centers in Korea and GMAC plans to have them integrated at all testing centers by May 2009.
GMAC has announced plans for a Next Generation GMAT set to launch in 2013. International differences will be taken into consideration more strongly.
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