I have just taken the general Graduate Record Examination revised General Test (GRE) administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), as well as the subject GRE test in Physics, both of which are intended to give graduate schools an accurate measure of a student’s capability as a graduate student in his or her respective field. After suffering through the agonizing processes of signing up, waiting, attempting to study for and taking both of these standardized tests, I have come to the conclusion they are both pointless measures of test-taking ability and prove useless as measures of knowledge we are supposed to have learned as students on the track to post-graduate studies.
The advertised purpose of the GRE is to help graduate schools vet their student candidates. According to greguide.com the test “helps colleges scan candidates and select only the capable ones … it helps students by giving them an opportunity to show their knowledge which is measured on a common scale, and all deserving students get a fair chance of admission to a college of their choice.” So it has a simple purpose, though that goal is only to provide the students and the schools assistance in the application process.
According to ETS, the GRE’s measurement of a student is only a portion of what matters for graduate study.
“GRE tests are intended to measure only a portion of the individual characteristics that are important for graduate study: reasoning skills, critical thinking and the ability to communicate effectively in writing in the General Test, and discipline-specific content knowledge through the Subject Tests,” says ets.org. So it would be safe to say there are plenty of other factors that should be taken into consideration when applying to graduate school or when vetting applications.
The GRE may be good at its specified tasks, but it is easy for students to place too much weight on their ability to succeed based off of their GRE scores. The skills the GRE general and subject tests measure are often learned naturally, and so studying will only waste time or provide just a little boost on a factor that is not really that important for most graduate programs.
Additionally, there is a high chance that success on the GRE is not related immediately to undergraduate preparedness, but rather family upbringing. As fairtest.org describes in an article titled “Examining the GRE: Myths, Misuses, and Alternatives,” the GRE top-scorers are often among the privileged members of society.
“The GRE is particularly susceptible to the influence of socioeconomic class. ETS’ own research has shown a strong relationship between family background and test scores. One study of applicants who scored between 750 and 800 (the maximum score in the past) on the exam found that only 4 percent of these high-scoring test-takers had fathers who had not completed high school; around half had fathers with bachelor’s degrees or more, and of these, a whopping 90 percent had fathers with graduate or professional degrees.”
Students interested in graduate study should probably keep taking the GRE tests, but only because so many schools require scores to even apply. Try not to get bogged down in studying or worrying over your scores. They are just a guide and should give way every time to valuable life experiences, academic success and motivation to succeed in graduate school. If studying or worrying about the GRE hampers any of your normal academic activities or gets in the way of other important factors in life or graduate school applications, take a break and look at the GRE in perspective. It matters, but it is not the most important factor of a successful graduate school application.
