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They are not alternatives to each other. The GRE is asked for by individual graduate programmes; the dMAT is part of APS documentation for particular applicant groups. If the dMAT applies to you, a GRE score does not replace it — and if you have already prepared for the GRE, some of that work carries over and some of it does not.
| dMAT | GRE General Test | |
|---|---|---|
| Run by | g.a.s.t. (the test is administered for APS India) | ETS |
| Who needs it | Selected APS India applicants — engineering, commerce/accounting/finance/economics, and business/management — for summer semester 2027 intakes and later | Set by each graduate programme; many make it optional |
| Structure | Core module (Figure Sequences, Mathematical Equations, Latin Squares) plus the General Academic Subject module | Analytical Writing (1 task), Verbal Reasoning (2 sections), Quantitative Reasoning (2 sections) |
| Testing time | About three hours of testing, roughly 90 minutes each side of a break (three and a half hours in total) | 1 hour 58 minutes |
| Adaptive? | Not published — check the official sources | Section-level adaptive: your first Verbal and Quantitative section sets the difficulty of the second |
| Language demand | Applied reasoning over short passages, data and charts in the Subject module; the Core module is non-verbal | Verbal Reasoning is a substantial English vocabulary and reading test in its own right |
| Scoring | 0–200 per module with a percentile rank, rather than pass/fail; the official description puts the average at 100 | Verbal and Quantitative 130–170 in 1-point increments; Analytical Writing 0–6 in half-point increments |
| Fee | €150, payable during registration | US$249 worldwide from 1 August 2026 per ETS. ETS prices some countries separately and its India site still lists an older figure — check ETS for your location |
| Test dates | One sitting per cycle — 26 September 2026 for this one, with no second sitting announced | Year-round; you book a slot that suits you |
| Score validity | Valid indefinitely — the certificate does not expire | 5 years |
| Delivery | Computer-delivered at licensed test centres across India | Computer-delivered at a test centre or at home |
Rows in muted type are ones we could not source on both sides — whether the dMAT adapts is not published as far as we can find, and ETS lists different fees on different pages. We would rather say so than fill the gap with a number. Everything else comes from ETS and from g.a.s.t./APS India; check both before you rely on any of it.
Transfers
Doesn't transfer
No. They answer to different requirements — the GRE is asked for by individual graduate programmes, while the dMAT is part of APS documentation for certain applicant groups. The exemptions APS India publishes are about when you registered or shipped your documents, and about exchange, double-degree and partnership programmes. A GRE score is not among them. Check the official APS India pages for your own case.
Only the quantitative work really overlaps. If both tests are close together, do the shared arithmetic and data-reading practice once and keep the rest separate: GRE vocabulary does nothing for the dMAT, and Figure Sequences and Latin Squares do nothing for the GRE. If the dates are far apart, prepare for them one at a time.
There is no published comparison, and the two measure different things, so the question does not really have an answer. What can be said is that they are hard in different places: the GRE leans on English vocabulary and reading, while the dMAT Core module is abstract pattern and logic work that most applicants have never done before.
The dMAT is fixed to the cycle — one sitting, and your APS documentation depends on it. The GRE is year-round, so it bends around the dMAT rather than the other way round. If you need both, book the dMAT first and fit the GRE where it does not collide with the fortnight before it.