Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58065
Spotlight ital photograph, and there is a video camera over every test station. Even on the road, we must assure schools that the person who takes the test is the same person who sends the application." The pilot is still in its early stages, A modified city bus is the home of GMAC's mobile testing center. GMAT on the Move GMAC hopes its mobile testing experiment translates to a larger, more diverse pool of business school applicants. Twenty-seven U.S. states, 49 stops, and 10,000 miles in six months. That's the schedule for the Graduate Management Admission Council's mobile testing center, which began its inaugural tour on November 1, 2006, at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. It will travel across the western U.S. down to the southern states, and then up north and across the Midwest, before end- ing its tour on May 31 at Washing- ton State University in Pullman. Although the mobile testing center is traveling to a variety of schools, it's specifically seeking out historically black colleges and uni- versities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), and military bases, which are often located far from metropolitan areas. "Some areas don't have enough test-taking volume to warrant a permanent test- ing site, but that doesn't mean we 72 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2007 don't want to reach these students," says GMAC's CEO Dave Wilson. "This is a pilot to see whether a mobile testing center will meet this unique need." A mobile unit Wilson stresses. It's too soon to tell how students will respond. How- ever, GMAC already has cleared Canada's data privacy regulations, laying the groundwork for its mobile unit to cross the Canadian border. And going international isn't out of the question, says Wilson. "We have certainly thought about students in regions such as Eastern Europe and Korea, where access is also an issue," he says. Once the six-month tour is com- allows GMAC to take the GMAT on the road, while maintaining strict control over test administration. To create the cen- ter, a city bus was retrofitted with six testing stations; a satellite dish mounted to the roof downloads the test multiple times each day. The unit also is equipped with state-of- the-art security and encryption tech- nology—a must to make a mobile GMAT work. "The GMAT score is a very important piece of personal data. Data privacy is a huge issue," says Wilson. "Each test taker must provide a digital fingerprint and dig- "WE ARE TRYING TO GIVE BUSINESS SCHOOLS A MORE DIVERSE POPULATION OF APPLICANTS." —Dave Wilson, GMAC plete, GMAC will begin evaluating the response to the program, to see if its mobile experiment should be made a permanent part of its testing options. Wilson hopes that busi- ness schools on the center's testing schedule will help promote its arriv- al; he also invites them to let GMAC know whether the service was valuable to their students. The goal, says Wilson, is to provide business schools with a larger, more diverse student population. "By taking the test directly to students at HBCUs, HSIs, and military bases, we are try- ing to build the population of test takers," says Wilson. "We are try- ing to give business schools a more diverse population of applicants, and get more quality students through the front door." For information about GMAC's mobile test center and tour schedule, visit www.gmac.com. ■ z