ABA APPLIED Exam 2027: dates, fees, format and results timeline

By The MockOral.ai team. Updated October 2026. Last reviewed October 22, 2026.

Everything a 2027 candidate needs on one page: the six exam weeks, how registration and week assignment work, what it costs, what happens on the day, and when results post. Every number is taken from the American Board of Anesthesiology’s own pages.

The short version

What the APPLIED Exam is

The APPLIED Exam is the last step of ABA initial certification. You take it after passing the ADVANCED Exam, and it has two separately scored components:

• The Standardized Oral Examination (SOE): two 35-minute sessions, each with two examiners, built on a short clinical stem. It assesses judgment, adaptability to unexpected clinical changes, and the organization and presentation of information. See how the SOE works.
• The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE): seven eight-minute stations with four minutes between stations to read the next scenario. Five stations test communication and professionalism, one tests interpretation of monitors and echocardiograms, and one tests hands-on ultrasound. See the OSCE stations explained.

Candidates who finished residency on or after Oct. 1, 2016 take both components. The ABA's page notes that candidates who finished residency between June 30 and Sept. 30, 2016 take only the SOE.

The 2027 exam weeks

The ABA lists six 2027 administration weeks: March 1 to 4, March 22 to 25, April 12 to 15, May 17 to 20, Sept. 13 to 16 and Oct. 25 to 28. The exam is given at the ABA's assessment center (the AIME Center) in Raleigh, North Carolina.

New for 2027: every candidate will also sit an unscored eighth OSCE station, either airway management or team-based skills. The ABA says the pilot will not affect results. Details are in the OSCE guide.

Registration and week assignment

The 2027 registration window ran Sept. 2 to 30, 2026 in ABA GO. It was not first come, first served: every eligible candidate who registered during the window was guaranteed a 2027 appointment, and each candidate rank-ordered all six weeks. After the window closed, the ABA sorted the rankings and randomized assignments against them, so a top choice is not guaranteed.

What happens next:

1. Late November 2026: your assigned exam week arrives by email.
2. About two months before your week: your exact date and time arrive by email.
3. Two weeks before your week: the deadline to email APPLIEDExam@theaba.org about any medical device, medicine or mobility aid you need in the room.

Once submitted, your rankings cannot be edited. You can view them in ABA GO under your APPLIED registration.

Missed September? The ABA says a second window will open in early 2027 for candidates who were not eligible in September, including those who pass the January 2027 ADVANCED Exam and 2026 week 5 and 6 candidates who did not pass one or both components. The ABA is explicit that a candidate who was eligible in September and did not register is not guaranteed a seat.

Fees

The ABA states that online payments are nonrefundable. These fees took effect with the 2026 exams; the ABA attributed the increase to inflation and said fees had been stable since 2020.

Changing or cancelling your week

You may request one exam week change free of charge for a documented medical or military reason, subject to availability, by emailing APPLIEDExam@theaba.org. Without that documentation, cancelling means paying the full $1,750 cancellation fee. A candidate who cancels or misses an exam for reasons other than an unavoidable or catastrophic event is placed behind newly eligible candidates for rescheduling, with a new date guaranteed within two years.

What exam day looks like

You register at a hotel named in your emails, then take a shuttle to the AIME Center. Bring a valid, signed, government-issued photo ID; without it you cannot test and you lose the fee. Phones, watches, wallets and pens go into a locker.

The ABA lists the time from registration as 5.25 hours for both components and 3.5 hours for one. If you take both, you get a 15-minute break between them. Some candidates take the SOE first and some the OSCE first.

• SOE block (1 hour 40 minutes): 20 minutes to read the first stem, a 35-minute session, 10 minutes to read the second stem, a second 35-minute session with two new examiners.
• OSCE block (84 minutes): seven rounds of four minutes reading a stem outside the door and eight minutes in the room, with a warning bell at six minutes.

These timings come from the ABA's current exam manual, which describes the seven scored OSCE stations. The 2027 pilot adds an eighth, unscored station, and the ABA has not yet published how that changes the length of the day, so allow for a longer OSCE block until it does.

If you recognize an SOE examiner, say so before you begin and another examiner will be sent.

You do not need a medical license to sit the exam, but you must report a full, unrestricted license in ABA GO before you are listed as certified.

Results timeline

The ABA says results appear in your ABA GO portal about two weeks after your exam, with a full performance report about one week after that. The SOE and OSCE are scored separately; if you fail one, you retake only that component. The rules and the next registration windows are in what to do after failing the APPLIED.

Planning from here

If your week is in March, a 12-week plan starts in early December. Our 12-week study schedule is dated for the March 1 week and shifts easily to the others. If you want to hear what a full stem sounds like, start with the preoperative sample stem.