AMC 2026-27 Dates Announced: A Complete Prep Timeline for AMC 10/12 (Nov) and AMC 8 (Jan)

The Confirmed 2026-27 AMC Calendar

Every AMC cycle, the MAA fixes its dates months ahead, and 2026-27 is no different. Families sometimes wait for a school circular or a coaching center reminder before treating the calendar as real, but the dates below are already locked — planning against them now is strictly better than starting to plan in October, when there's far less room to fix content gaps.

Counting Back From November 5: A Timeline for AMC 10/12

A seven-week runway sounds tight, but it's workable if the weeks are used for genuinely different things rather than repeating the same generic practice sets. The most useful way to structure it is to work backward from November 5 in blocks, each with a specific job to do.

• Weeks 7-6 (now through early October): an honest diagnostic — full-length past papers under timed conditions — to find out which topics are genuinely shaky versus which are just rusty. This block is about mapping the gap, not closing it yet.
• Weeks 5-4 (early to mid-October): targeted content work on the weakest two or three topic areas identified above, mixed with continued timed practice so speed doesn't atrophy while content gaps are being patched.
• Weeks 3-2 (mid to late October): full past papers at real exam pace, reviewed problem by problem — not just for the final answer but for where time was lost, where a guess-and-check shortcut would have been faster, and where a careless slip cost a point that content mastery alone wouldn't have prevented.
• Final week (late October to November 4): taper, not cram. Lighter review, sleep and routine protected, maybe one last timed set early in the week — not three papers crammed into the final weekend.

Why the Eight-Day Gap Between the A and B Papers Changes the Plan

This cycle, AMC 10B/12B falls just eight days after the A papers, on November 13 — tighter than the two-week gap some families remember from other years. That compresses how much can realistically be fixed between the two sittings, which matters for anyone planning to attempt both and counting on the better of the two scores toward AIME qualification. The review window after November 5 needs to be planned in advance, not figured out the morning after the first paper. For the logistics and strategy of sitting both this cycle, see AMC 10A/12A vs AMC 10B/12B: Should Students Attempt Both? — and for what actually differs between an A and a B paper in general, the existing guide on AMC 10A vs AMC 10B covers that ground well.

A Separate, Shorter Countdown for the AMC 8 Window in January

AMC 8 sitters are a different cohort — grade 8 and below — and January 21-27, 2027 is far enough out that the temptation is to treat it as someone else's problem until December. That's usually a mistake. Four months sounds generous, but it includes the run-up to the November AMC 10/12 season (which absorbs a lot of a coaching center's and a family's bandwidth if an older sibling is also sitting those), followed by school exams and winter holidays, both of which quietly eat into study weeks that looked available in September.

• September-October: steady syllabus coverage — pre-algebra, early algebra, basic geometry, introductory number theory — at a pace that doesn't need to be rushed yet.
• November-December: this is where momentum often stalls if the household's attention is on an older sibling's AMC 10/12. Protecting even two structured sessions a week through this stretch matters more than it looks like it does in the moment.
• Early January: shift to full-length timed AMC 8 papers, reviewed thoroughly, plus a deliberate push on whichever topic area is still weakest.
• The week of January 21-27 itself: confirm the test center's specific date well before the window opens — centers do vary, and this is exactly the kind of detail that causes avoidable last-week stress if left unconfirmed.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Starting serious prep only after the dates 'feel close.' Seven weeks and four months both look like a lot of time in September; both shrink fast once school assessments, festivals, and ordinary life get factored in.
• Treating the AMC 8 window as a single fixed date. It's a window — confirming the actual test-center date early avoids a scramble in the third week of January.
• Ignoring the eight-day gap when planning intensity for 10B/12B. A student who treats the days after November 5 as a rest period, rather than a short, focused review window, loses the main advantage of having a second sitting at all.
• Registering late. Popular test centers fill up, and a late registration can mean traveling further or settling for a less convenient time — worth locking in as soon as a center is chosen.

Expert Tips from BuzzyBrains Academy Faculty

Founder Dilip Sah (IIT Kanpur alumnus, JEE AIR 400, 25+ years of mentoring experience) builds this kind of date-backward timeline with every AMC batch as soon as the MAA calendar is confirmed, rather than waiting for exam season to start feeling urgent:

• Diagnostics happen in week one, not week five — a student's actual topic gaps are mapped against the confirmed exam date immediately, so the remaining weeks are spent closing real gaps instead of guessing at them.
• The AMC 8 cohort gets protected study time through November-December, specifically because that's the stretch families with an older AMC 10/12 sibling tend to quietly deprioritize it.
• Small batches (max 12 students) at the Amanora, Hadapsar centre — with an online option — mean each student's timeline is tracked individually against these dates, not run on a single generic countdown. Parents who want a timeline built around their own child's current level can book a free consultation with Dilip Sir.