What does 'percentile' mean when you can take the test more than once?

Question

If you take the gmat more than once, is it just your best score that is included in the curve? Or are all your scores included in the curve?

If it's the former, then a 95th percentile score becomes more impressive than if it's the latter.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

"What are Percentile Rankings?
Each of your five GMAT scores includes a percentile ranking, which indicates the percent of test takers that you performed better than. For example, a ranking of 75% means that 25% of test takers performed as well or better than you, and 75% did not do as well. While your scores will not change over time, your percentile ranking may because rankings are recalculated every year using exam data from the prior three years."

-https://www.mba.com/exams/gmat-exam/scores/understanding-your-score

stm579 · Answer

To clarify.. does it mean the score is better than 75% of scores including everyone’s retakes, or better than 75% of people’s best scores?

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MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

The percentile is the percentage of all GMAT scores, including all retakes, that your score is higher than.

stm579 · Answer

Okay so it does include people’s retakes.. so a 760 = 99th percentile isn’t really 99th percentile then…..?

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MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

It's not 99th percentile in terms of test-takers. So, in that sense, correct, it's not really 99th percentile.

It's 99th percentile in terms of tests taken.

stm579 · Answer

Cool that clears things up thanks!

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What does 'percentile' mean when you can take the test more than once?

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