History of the Council

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 GMAC sponsored, now known as the Graduate Management Admission Test®, or GMAT®, was taken just over 2,000 times; in recent years, it has been taken more than 200,000 times annually.