Bocconi Test 2026/27: The Complete Guide to 2027/28 Admission

The Bocconi Online Test is 50 multiple-choice questions in 75 minutes, taken at home on a proctored platform, and it decides 55% of your admission ranking — the other 45% is your school GPA. You can sit it up to four times, from 13 July 2026, and Bocconi counts your best score.^[1]

The rest of this guide is the detail behind that paragraph: what's on the test, how it's scored, which application session you're actually allowed to enter, and what it all costs.

One thing to get straight first. This guide covers the Bocconi Online Test for Bachelor and Law programmes. It is not the SDA Bocconi MBA entrance test, and it is not the Bocconi test for Master of Science programmes. If you're applying to a three-year Bachelor or the five-year Law programme, you're in the right place.

The 2027/28 admission calendar

Session	Applications open	Deadline (15:00 Italian time)	Results	Who can apply
Early	2 September 2026	29 September 2026	mid November 2026	everyone
Winter	25 November 2026	26 January 2027	mid March 2027	everyone
Spring	8 April 2027	27 April 2027	end of May 2027	Italian-system applicants only

The webtesting platform opens 13 July 2026. When it closes depends on which kind of applicant you are:

• Italian-system applicants (you attend or attended a school in the Italian system) can book tests until 20 April 2027.
• International applicants (school outside Italy) can book until 19 January 2027.

Deadlines are described by Bocconi as peremptory — no late applications, no amendments afterwards. And note that each session needs a brand-new application, with its own €100 fee. Taking the test does not enter you into anything; you still have to apply.

Full booking windows, the five-day gap between the last test date and each deadline, and the results timeline are in our dates and deadlines guide.

Why some pages say two sessions and others say three

Because both are true, for different people. Bocconi's English admissions page states there are "two selection sessions available for the admission to the 2027-28 AY: Early and Winter". The Italian page lists three, adding the Spring session on 8–27 April 2027.

Neither page is wrong. The official Instructions and Rules of Conduct for 2027/28 put it plainly: "International applicants are subject to different booking windows and selection rounds from those applicable to Italian applicants." Since the international booking window shuts on 19 January 2027 — before Spring opens — the Spring session is effectively closed to international applicants. The English page is written for its audience.

This causes real confusion. On 12 August 2026 an applicant on r/bocconi was told flatly "There's no spring session anymore, it's only early and winter", and replied: "I literally called bocconi and they told me to apply during the spring session" (thread). Both had read a real Bocconi page. Check which applicant category you are before you plan your year.

One more consequence worth knowing: Bocconi says roughly 90–95% of places are allocated in the Early and Winter sessions, with Spring assigning the remaining 5–10%. Applying early isn't just advice, it's where the seats are.

What's actually on the test

50 multiple-choice questions, 75 minutes, four areas:

Area	Questions
Mathematics	24
Reading comprehension	11
Numerical reasoning	6
Critical thinking	9

Bocconi now describes the test as "designed SAT-oriented". Questions are mixed throughout by topic and difficulty — you don't get a clean maths block followed by a clean reading block.

If you're applying to Law (the five-year integrated MA in Law, or Global Law), you take the Bocconi Online Test – Law instead: still 50 questions in 75 minutes, but weighted Mathematics 5, Reading comprehension 11, Numerical reasoning 6, Logic and critical thinking 18, Verbal reasoning 10. The Law test only works for Law School programmes; the standard test works for everything.

The navigation rule that catches people out

The test shows 3 questions per screen and you cannot go back. Click "Next" and the previous screen is gone for good. There is no review pass, no flag-and-return, no changing an answer you thought better of. Budget your time on the screen you're on.

A test-taker's rule of thumb from r/bocconi: the Bocconi test is manageable "if you can manage to spend 2 minutes at most on a single question and not stumble" (thread, August 2026). Fifty questions in 75 minutes is 90 seconds each, so that's about right.

What changed — and why half the prep material is out of date

The section mix changed for the 2026/27 test cycle:

	Mathematics	Reading	Numerical reasoning	Critical thinking
2026/27 and 2027/28 tests	24	11	6	9
Earlier cycle	28	11	6	5

Four maths questions moved into critical thinking. The number of attempts also went up, from three to four. If a book, course or blog tells you the test is 28 maths questions, it was written before this change — and a surprising amount of what currently ranks on Google still says 28.

Scoring, and the number everyone misreads

Answer	Points
Correct	+1
Unanswered	0
Wrong	−0.2
Wrong, on a three-option critical-thinking question	−0.33

Maximum score: 50. The penalties are milder than they look — deliberately so. Guessing breaks even once your chance of being right beats roughly one in six (the break-even is 0.2 ÷ 1.2 ≈ 17%), so eliminating even a single option makes answering worth it. And on the three-option critical-thinking questions the arithmetic goes further: even a blind guess has positive expected value (+0.11 points on average), because a one-in-three hit rate outweighs the −0.33 penalty. The practical rule: answer whenever you can rule anything out, and on critical thinking, never leave a blank. We work through the full numbers — with a table of when guessing pays — in our negative-marking guide.

Applicants scoring below 17 (penalties included) are not considered at all.

And here is the part that gets misread constantly. 17 is a floor, not a target. It is the threshold to be considered. Admission is by ranking — your test score at 55%, your third-last and second-last year GPA at 45% — against the places available in that session. There is no published cutoff for any programme, in any session, in any year. Bocconi does not release one.

So what do people actually score? We can only tell you what applicants say about themselves, and we'll label it honestly:

• One applicant reported 39.6 with a 9.46 GPA in the Winter session: admitted to BIEM, rejected from BIEF (r/bocconi, July 2026).
• Advice circulating in the same threads runs to "40+ for biem and 44+ for bief" (r/bocconi, July 2026).

These are single self-reported data points and unsourced folklore respectively — not cutoffs, not from Bocconi, and not a promise. Treat them as a rough sense of the neighbourhood, and nothing more. Anyone publishing a confident "you need X" number for Bocconi is making it up.

One extra requirement, this one official: if the Bachelor in Mathematical and Computing Sciences for Artificial Intelligence is among your choices, you also need at least 11 of 24 in the Mathematics area. (Bocconi's own page said "11 out of 28" for a while after the maths section shrank to 24 questions — it now correctly reads 11/24.)

What to study

Bocconi publishes the syllabus as a topic list rather than a formal specification. The Mathematics area is by far the biggest and covers:

algebra (expressions, polynomials, powers, radicals; first- and second-degree equations, inequalities and systems; absolute values) · functions (notation, formula manipulation, inverse and composite functions, elementary graphs) · plane geometry (triangles, rectangles, squares, trapezoids, circles) · analytic geometry (points and distances, lines, slope, intersections, parabolas, circles) · trigonometry (identities, sine, cosine, tangent) · sets · logarithms and exponentials · discrete mathematics (permutations, arrangements, combinations, counting) · numbers, percentages and unit conversions · probability (including conditional probability and Bayes' theorem) · problem solving · statistics (frequencies, central tendency, dispersion).

The full topic list, including the two places where Bocconi's English and Italian pages differ, is in our maths syllabus guide.

Reading comprehension is passages with follow-up questions, some on explicit information and some on implicit meaning. Numerical reasoning deliberately needs no advanced maths — Bocconi's own framing is that the difficulty is reading a chart or table correctly and separating what matters from what doesn't. Critical thinking comes in two shapes: judging statements true or false from supplied data, and judging whether a claim is true, false, or not deducible from a short argument.

The official free simulation — 50 questions, 75-minute timer — is the only official practice material, and it should be your first move.

⚠️ Worth knowing before you rely on it: test-takers consistently report scoring lower on the real thing. "i've heard people score 2-3 points less in the real test", with the data-and-propositions tables described as noticeably harder (r/bocconi, March 2026). Another applicant scored 30 on their first official attempt after consistently clearing 40 on the mocks (r/bocconi, January 2026). Reports aren't unanimous — one taker found the maths easier than their third-party practice app — but plan for the gap.

Booking, attempts and test day

There is no fixed exam date. You buy an attempt, pick any available day in your booking window (at least 48 hours ahead), and the booked day runs 00:00–23:59 Italian time — you can start whenever you like. Technical support runs 09:00–18:00 Monday to Thursday and 09:00–16:30 on Friday, which is a good reason not to start at midnight.

Four attempts per test type per academic year. At least 24 hours between purchases, and no two attempts on the same day or on consecutive days. Your score report — total, per-area scores, and counts of correct, wrong and unanswered — appears in your platform account within 48 hours. You choose which score to submit, and the application portal automatically takes your highest if you submit more than one.

The last usable test dates for each session: 24 September 2026 for Early, 21 January 2027 for Winter, and 22 April 2027 for Spring (Italian-system applicants). The platform closes a few days before each application deadline, so don't leave your first attempt until the final week.

Who is allowed to sit it

Only applicants who already hold an upper secondary school diploma, or who will obtain it during the 2026/27 school year — i.e. graduating by July 2027. This is not a soft rule: an applicant who sits the test without meeting it has the test invalidated with no refund and is excluded from future selection rounds. If you're in your penultimate year, you cannot sit this cycle's test.

There's also an age rule for non-Italian citizens not resident in Italy: you must be at least 17 as of 1 September 2027, and if you'll be 17 but not yet 18, you need a legal guardian resident in Italy.

On your desk: no calculator

You may have only these things on your desk: your computer, the identity document you'll use on your Bocconi application, one pencil or pen, two blank A4 sheets, a drink in a glass or unlabelled bottle, and your written or printed login credentials. Everything else comes off the desk.

Calculators are explicitly prohibited, along with notes, formula sheets, second screens or devices even when switched off, privacy filters, and wireless keyboards and mice — wired peripherals only.

The session is audio- and video-recorded through a lockdown browser, and before you start you film a slow 360° scan of the room, including under the desk and inside wardrobes. Mid-test, the proctoring system may interrupt for extra checks — another room recording, or holding your scratch sheets up to the webcam, which Bocconi may later compare against what you actually did. Time spent on those checks doesn't come out of your 75 minutes.

It surprises people. One test-taker: "the random room check during the test was so sudden that I genuinely almost had a heart attack" (r/bocconi, July 2026). Expect it and it costs you nothing.

If you have a disability or a specific learning disorder, accommodations (including extra time) must be requested at least 5 working days before your test date, and once granted they apply to all your later attempts that cycle.

Alternatives to the Bocconi test

You don't have to take it. For Undergraduate School programmes Bocconi also accepts the SAT and the ACT; for Law School programmes it additionally accepts the LSAT and the Bocconi Online Test – Law. You may submit more than one score and the portal takes the highest.

The practical trade-off, which nobody seems to write down: the Bocconi test is bookable on demand almost year-round, while the SAT runs on fixed international dates. Applicants discover this in August every year — the September SAT result lands only just before the 29 September Early deadline, leaving no room to retake. If you're deciding late, that timing difference matters more than which test is "easier". We compare the routes properly in Bocconi Test vs SAT.

What it costs

Item	Cost
Bocconi online test	€60 per attempt
Application fee	€100 per application (per School, non-refundable once submitted)
Four attempts + one application	€340

Both figures have held steady for three cycles. Note the fee structure carefully: the €100 is per application, so applying to both the Undergraduate School and the Law School means two applications and two fees — and each new session means another application and another €100. Paying it doesn't enter you into the round; the application has to be confirmed and submitted through the Apply2B portal before the deadline.

Tuition for 2027/28 hasn't been announced yet. Bocconi's fees page says only that the amount "will be defined soon". Based on previous years — €16,500 for 2024-25, €16,700 for 2025-26, €17,000 for 2026-27 — full-rate first-year tuition has risen by €200–300 per cycle. Partial tuition waivers of 20/40/60/80% exist and are income-assessed; the 2027-28 amounts are listed as "soon available".

How many places are there?

Approximately 3,000 first-year places for 2027/28. For the first time Bocconi has published the per-programme intake:

Programme	Classes	Language	Intake
Management (L-18) / Economia aziendale (L-18)	6 + 6	ENG / ITA	690 + 690
Finance (L-33)	4	ENG	460
Management for the Arts and Cultures (L-18)	2	ENG	230
Management and Computer Science (L-33)	2	ENG	230
Economics (L-33)	1	ENG	115
Mathematical and Computing Sciences for AI (L-35)	1	ENG	115
International Politics and Government (L-36)	1	ENG	115
Undergraduate School total			2,645
Law (five-year integrated MA)	2	ITA	240
Global Law (L-14 R)	1	ENG	80
Law School total			320
World Bachelor in Business	1	ENG	45

For programmes taught in English, up to 50–55% of places may be reserved for international applicants.

How many people apply is not published. Bocconi releases no applicant count, so any "acceptance rate" you see for Bocconi is somebody's estimate, not a fact.

English language requirements

This one trips people up because of when it applies: the English requirement gates enrollment, not the admission test. You don't need a certificate to sit the test or to apply — you need it by the enrollment deadline if you're admitted.

For Bachelor programmes taught in English you need B2: IELTS Academic 6.5 (with at least 6.0 in every section), TOEFL iBT 88, Duolingo 110, Cambridge CAE/FCE 173 or CPE 180, Trinity ISE II, or one of several IGCSE English qualifications at the specified grade.

For programmes taught in Italian the bar is B1: IELTS 5.0, TOEFL iBT 45, Duolingo 75, Cambridge FCE 153, Trinity ISE I.

You can also satisfy it without a certificate: citizens of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States qualify automatically, as do holders of diplomas awarded in English (IB, American High School Diploma, British/Scottish/Irish qualifications, Canadian High School Diploma, Baccalauréat Français International, European Baccalaureate, Indian CISCE or CBSE). For Italian-taught programmes only, a SAT, ACT or Bocconi test taken entirely in English also counts.

Results and what happens next

Bocconi publishes results in the late afternoon of the results day. Only the month is official so far for 2027/28: mid November 2026 for Early, mid March 2027 for Winter, end of May 2027 for Spring.

Two separate rankings are built, one for the Undergraduate School and one for the Law School. Places are assigned down the ranking from the top, to each applicant's first choice while places last, then second, third and fourth. Your points decide, not the order of your choices. Last cycle applicants had roughly two weeks from results to enroll.

Not admitted? You can apply again in a later session with a brand-new application. A test score obtained in time for one round can be reused in the next. But if you're already enrolled at Bocconi, you can't apply in a later round without formally withdrawing first — otherwise the new application is cancelled automatically.

Quick answers

Is the Bocconi test hard? It's not conceptually hard — it's fast. Fifty questions in 75 minutes, no going back, and a penalty for wrong answers. The published maths syllabus stops at standard secondary-school material.

Can I take it in my penultimate year? No. Only 2027 graduates for this cycle, and sitting it early gets the test invalidated and you excluded from future rounds.

Can I use a calculator? No. One pen, two sheets of blank A4.

How many times can I take it? Four per test type per academic year, never on the same or consecutive days.

Do I need an essay or a motivation letter? No. Bocconi states the evaluation is based solely on the test score and your GPA, and that additional documents — recommendation letters, motivational letters, CVs or résumés — will not be considered.

Which language do I take it in? Italian or English, your choice at purchase — it's independent of the language your degree is taught in.

Does my best score count? Yes. The portal takes the highest score you submit.

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Every fact on this page is sourced from Bocconi's official admissions pages, the Online Bocconi Test page, and the AY 2027/28 Instructions and Rules of Conduct, in both their English and Italian versions. Community observations are attributed and linked, and are individual reports rather than data. Last verified: 18 August 2026. BocconiPrep is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Bocconi University.