GRE exam dates: year-round, with a 21-day rule

The retake rule, and how strictly it is enforced

ETS states it plainly: you can take the GRE General Test once every 21 days, up to five times within any continuous rolling 12-month period (365 days) — and that applies even if you cancelled your scores on a previous attempt.

The enforcement is worth reading twice, because it is unusually severe:

• If a violation is spotted after registration but before the test, the appointment is cancelled and the fees are forfeited.
• If it is spotted after scores have been reported, those scores are cancelled, every recipient is notified of the cancellation, and the fees are forfeited.

At INR 25,522 an attempt, an accidental violation — registering twice with slightly different details, for instance — is an expensive mistake. Register with exactly the same details every time.

Planning backwards from a deadline

1. Find the deadline and the programme's published average GRE, not its minimum.
2. Allow about 8 to 10 days for official scores to reach your ETS account and your recipients.
3. Leave 21 days in case you want a second attempt — that gap is fixed and cannot be shortened.
4. Book about two months out, which leaves room for one retake and the reporting time after it.

Five-year validity makes early testing cheap in planning terms: a score taken in your final undergraduate year is still usable for applications two or three years later, and you are more likely to be in study habit then than after two years of work.

Test centre or at home

• At a test centre — no equipment to arrange, and no technical risk on the day.
• At home — the same test with an online proctor, where travel or centre availability is the obstacle. Read the equipment and room requirements before booking, not the night before.

Changing your mind later costs money: rescheduling is US$55 / INR 5,650, and changing your test centre costs the same.