[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/gmatbus.jpg” caption=”The GMAT Mobile Testing Centre will visit McMaster on Saturday, June 28 and Wednesday, July 2.”]Aspiring business school students in Hamilton have a new way to take the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), the entrance exam required by more than 4,000 graduate business programs around the world, including the DeGroote School of Business.

This weekend, a mobile testing unit will set up at McMaster University. The mobile testing centre is traveling to 14 universities in cities across seven Canadian provinces.

The GMAT Mobile Test Centre is a converted city bus outfitted with the same high-tech facilities as a traditional bricks-and-mortar GMAT test centre. The mobile testing centre is designed to provide access to the exam for students who may live many miles away from a regular test site. For students in the Hamilton area, the closest permanent testing centres are downtown Toronto, Pickering, London and Williamsville, NY.

“The mobile test centre is a very practical and visible way to illustrate our commitment to creating even more access to the GMAT exam — and to graduate management education,” says Dave Wilson, president and CEO of the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), and a Toronto native.

This trip represents the GMAT Mobile Test Centre's first trip to Canada. Begun as a pilot program to increase access to the exam for students in rural and/or remote areas in fall 2006, the bus visited nearly 50 U.S. locations between October 2006 and May 2007. A second seven-month U.S. tour in 2007-08 included 28 colleges and universities. In 2007, about 240,000 GMAT exams were administered around the world.

“Students who are applying to most business schools around the world must take a GMAT. We are very happy to partner with GMAC to increase access to this important service,” says Paul Bates, dean of the DeGroote School of Business.

The GMAT Mobile Test Centre includes six computerized testing stations, electronic security systems and high-speed satellite communications equipment. Testers on the bus undergo the same identity procedures and take the exam under the same controlled conditions as their counterparts who visit permanent GMAT facilities. These measures include fingerprint-recording, digital photography and closed-circuit television monitoring during the exam. The centre will be set up at McMaster on Saturday, June 28 and Wednesday, July 2.

The GMAT is a standardized exam used to screen applicants by admissions professionals at more than 1,800 business schools around the world. Launched in 1954, the GMAT is now administered more than 200,000 times annually at testing centers worldwide. Information on the GMAT is available at www.mba.com. The test is owned by the McLean, Va.-based Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a non-profit organization of leading business schools around the world.