A 750 on the old GMAT is a 695 to 715 on today's 205 to 805 scale, the 97.4th to 98.8th percentile in GMAC's concordance table. Reaching it usually takes 200 to 300 or more hours over three to six months, and the last stretch comes from precision, not more content.
Search Reddit for "GMAT 750" and you will find everything from 50 hour success stories to 18 month grinds. The spread is real: your timeline depends on your starting score and on whether you can get past the plateau that stops most people short of the top percentiles. This page also covers the scale change that makes many 750 threads misleading.
The current GMAT (launched as the Focus Edition) is scored from 205 to 805, with Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning and Data Insights counting equally. GMAC publishes a concordance linking old and new scores. Its July 2025 table, based on test takers from July 2020 to June 2025, gives:
| Old GMAT score | Current GMAT score | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| 760 | 715 to 735 | 98.8 to 99.5% |
| 750 | 695 to 715 | 97.4 to 98.8% |
| 730 | 675 to 685 | 94.8 to 95.8% |
| 700 | 645 to 655 | 86.7 to 90.5% |
So if a school or forum post says 750, read it as roughly 705 today. Do not compare a current practice score of 700 with old 750 threads and conclude you are 50 points short; you are close. For the 700 level, see how long to study for a GMAT 700.
There is no official figure. As a planning estimate:
At about 1.5 hours on weekdays and 4 or more on weekend days, around 15 hours a week, 300 hours takes four to five months. For the general picture, including GMAC's own survey data on prep time, see how long to study for the GMAT.
The r/GMAT posts about top scores in a few weeks are real but unrepresentative. They usually come from people with a strong maths background or native-level English reasoning, and the detailed debriefs come mostly from top scorers. Copying an outlier's timeline is a common way to fall short.
Older threads mislead in another way: a 2019 post about mastering Sentence Correction for a 750 describes an exam that no longer exists. Sentence Correction and geometry are gone, and Data Insights is a full third of your score.
One more trap people describe often is resource hoarding: 100 hours of videos and textbooks and 50 hours of actual problems. It feels productive but builds recognition, not recall. Active recall techniques show whether you can produce the method without the book open.
Most people stall somewhere short of the top percentiles. By then you know the rules: you can do a weighted average and spot a Critical Reasoning structure. Another 100 hours of the same practice rarely helps, because the remaining errors are about how you process questions, not what you know.
A plateaued student sees "rate problem" and reaches for distance equals rate times time. A top scorer asks what the relationship between the variables is and how the question is hiding it. To build that habit, use Blind Review: redo missed questions untimed without the explanation, and stay with each one until you can show why the right answer has to be right and every wrong one is wrong. Then check the solution.
A list of missed question numbers is useless. For each miss, record the logic flaw that caught you, the trigger in the question you should have noticed, and the principle that solves it. Patterns appear fast, and they are usually about logic rather than maths or grammar. Turning entries into flashcards with active recall and spaced repetition stops the same mistake twice.
Our GMAT Anki deck guide shows how to turn error log entries into cards that test the principle, not the question.
This assumes you have taken a diagnostic and are starting in the 600s.
Easy problems feel good and teach little at this level. Most of your time should go on questions you keep getting wrong. Practise cutting your losses too: one stubborn question can wreck the pacing of a whole section. Work out your time per question so you know when to guess and move on. More general habits are in these tips for studying effectively.
The tedious part of a top-score plan is keeping the error log reviewable. Upload your notes or exported error log to StudyCards AI and get flashcards for Anki, so you review your recurring logic flaws on the commute instead of flipping through a notebook. See what Reddit says about AI flashcards or AI study tools for students.
Try StudyCards AI FreeThe current GMAT (formerly the Focus Edition) is scored 205 to 805, so 750 is no longer a typical target. GMAC's concordance table links an old 750 to a current 695, 705 or 715, which is the 97.4th to 98.8th percentile.
Most people need 200 to 300 or more hours over three to six months, depending on their diagnostic. Candidates who already score in the 600s on the current scale need fewer hours than those starting from scratch, but the last few points take the longest.
Only if your diagnostic is already close, usually within about 30 points. For most people, one month is not enough to build the precision a top 2% score needs.
6 to 10 full official practice exams, each with a full Blind Review. Taking more without review mostly adds fatigue.
Bring your weakest section up first, because the three sections count equally. Then push your strongest. It is usually easier to move a 90th percentile section to the 99th than a 10th percentile section to the 50th.
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