GMAT Score Chart 2026: What 645, 675 and 705 Really Mean

A GMAT total on the current edition runs from 205 to 805, built from three sections that each score 60 to 90 and count equally: Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning and Data Insights. The number itself tells a business school little until it is set against everyone else who sat the exam, which is what the percentile does. GMAC publishes that ranking in two places: a concordance PDF with one decimal, and a widget on mba.com that rounds to whole numbers. Both now carry data from July 2021 to June 2026, and both put a 645 at the 86th percentile (85.6 on the PDF). Two of GMAC's own articles still print older readings: the 87th, which was the July 2025 table rounded, and "the 90th" for 645-655. This guide gives the full current table, the section tables that behave very differently from the total, the link to old 10th Edition scores, and a calculator.

GMAC, mba.com "Understanding your score" widget, data period 2021-2026; support.mba.com "How is the exam scored?".

GMAC recomputes percentiles every year over a rolling five-year window, and the score report you already hold is updated automatically. GMAC's help centre is explicit that "your total score remains unchanged" while the ranking attached to it moves. Over the three recent editions, each middle and upper-middle score in the table below has lost rank, while the very top (775 to 805) stays at 100.0. GMAC's stated reasons are "population shifts, graduate management education trends, and other external forces"; it does not say more simply that recent test takers score higher.

Two consequences for an applicant. A school that writes its floor as a percentile rather than a score, as IIM Calcutta does for its one-year MBAEx, can move the score you need from one cycle to the next without changing a word of its policy. And an old article that says "645 is the 88th percentile" may have been right when written; the fix is to check the date on the table it quotes. GMAC's school resources page links the current table as an "Aug2026" file, but an older GMAC article still links a copy named "Jul2025" whose contents also say "Published Aug. 2026", so cite the "Published" line, not the file name.

The three section scales look identical, 60 to 90, but they are not interchangeable. Verbal scores bunch tightly (standard deviation 4.89), Quant spreads widely (6.52), and Data Insights sits lowest on average (mean 75.14). The result: an 80 is the 83rd percentile in Data Insights, the 64th in Quant and only the 54th in Verbal. When you decide what to work on for a retake, compare section percentiles, not section scores.

The 10th Edition (200 to 800) was sunset on 31 January 2024. GMAC says the two scales "cannot be compared" directly and gives its own warning example: 600 and 605 look similar but represent very different performance. The concordance links them only through shared percentiles. On the Aug 2026 table a 10th Edition 700 sits in the same percentile band as Focus 645 to 655, and a 750 with 695 to 715.

Schools deal with this in different ways. ISB and IIM Ahmedabad publish separate Classic and Focus figures for the same class. IIM Calcutta states its floor as a percentile and says it applies "uniformly regardless of whether the candidate's GMAT score is from the Classic or Focus Edition". A 10th Edition score stays valid for five years from its test date; since the last 10th Edition sittings were in January 2024, the latest of them run into January 2029. They can be sent while valid but are excluded from the new Superscore.

The official report gives a total, three section scores and a percentile for each. It arrives in your mba.com account within five days (GMAC says it can occasionally take up to 20), and it cannot be expedited. You do not need to cancel a score you dislike: schools do not receive an attempt you do not send, with one qualification since 12 August 2026. If that unsent attempt supplies a section of your Superscore, the section score, its date and its delivery method appear on the Superscore report that travels with any score you do send. Your five free score sends must be used within 48 hours of the score becoming available; after that each Additional Score Report is US$35. Because percentiles are recomputed each year, the percentile on the score record in your mba.com account may be lower next year than today, with the same total (GMAC says the test-taker report is not downloadable or available as a PDF). When an application form asks for a percentile, follow that programme's instructions: IIM Calcutta, for example, reads percentiles "as reported on the candidate's official GMAT score report".

ProSyllabus has no GMAT practice quizzes yet, so this guide does not point you to any. GMAC's own free Official Starter Kit on mba.com includes two full-length practice exams scored the same way as the real test.

ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not part of GMAC or of any school named here. Every rule is quoted or summarised from GMAC (mba.com, gmac.com, support.mba.com) and the schools' own admission pages; they decide every individual case.