ETS

[llcooln6]

ETS AND the GRE are just away for schools and ETS to make money.Anyone agree, it is all BS and a scam.

[dherres]

The U of California system agrees. They've ceased using the GRE for admission consideration. I don't know if the CA State system has as well.

But there's a lot of research that suggests a very small correlation between GRE scores and performance in grad school. If it exists, it's strongest with the subject GRE.

[liszt85]

Since when does the University of California system agree? I have applied to UCSD, UCD and UCB, all of which require the GRE.

Students like me from India find it difficult to spend so much on the GRE and the amount ETS charges for every additional report. $20 for GRE and $17 for Toefl, that makes it $37 for each school. I've applied to 13 programs. Add the original GRE and TOEFL fee to that. When you convert this to Indian Rupees, it comes out to be equivalent to almost thrice my mother's monthly income (but I had enough money saved from my internship to pay for all this but am bankrupt now) but I guess its a price we have to pay to get into the wonderful graduate educational system that the US has built carefully and painstakingly over the years which also involves the American tax payer's money.. So its fair, only that I think $20 for an additional report is too much for a middle/working class Indian student.

[dherres]

Since when does the University of California system agree? I have applied to UCSD, UCD and UCB, all of which require the GRE.

Students like me from India find it difficult to spend so much on the GRE and the amount ETS charges for every additional report. $20 for GRE and $17 for Toefl, that makes it $37 for each school. I've applied to 13 programs. Add the original GRE and TOEFL fee to that. When you convert this to Indian Rupees, it comes out to be equivalent to almost thrice my mother's monthly income (but I had enough money saved from my internship to pay for all this but am bankrupt now) but I guess its a price we have to pay to get into the wonderful graduate educational system that the US has built carefully and painstakingly over the years which also involves the American tax payer's money.. So its fair, only that I think $20 for an additional report is too much for a middle/working class Indian student.

I stand corrected, my apologies. I'm going off of what my Research Methods professor told us in class this past fall. I perhaps misremembered and they're moving to change, and haven't actually done so already.

[liszt85]

Ok cool.. btw, I notice that you have applied to U of Minnesota too, have you heard from them as yet? I've applied to both Psychology as well as to the new Cognitive Sciences Graduate program there. I hope I get into the Psychology program as I hear its really great..

-Vishnu

[socialpsych]

I agree. And I think the psych subject GRE is a REAL waste of time--I started studying for it and stopped when I realized it was not required at any of my schools. I'm glad so many schools make it optional.

[asocialpsych]

I recently read an article, possibly in Inside Higher Ed, that stated that the UC system was planning to stop using the GRE, but because this would cause such a massive decrease in income for ETS, they agreed to make a number of changes that were requested by UC. I understand the need for graduate programs to have some sort of consistent measure for aptitude since undergraduate programs vary so much in quality and rigor, but surely having students submit undergraduate papers, or prepare research models, etc. would be better than standardized tests. I guess it's all about how much effort the graduate programs want to put into their admissions process.

[liszt85]

Absolutely! NU had asked for writing samples, publications, etc. They took the pains to read through everything that a candidate had to offer. I am extremely satisfied with NU's admission procedure and the effort that they've put into it. I mean when you read a single author paper or a first author publication, you should be able to judge the caliber of the student.

ETS is like the Trinity College of Music London or the Royal music examination boards which go to the third world countries, charge an obscene fee for conducting these examinations which anyway have no value anywhere in the world at any respectable music school. TOEFL is another joke of an examination.

[uberskooper]

A professor that I did undergrad research with actually got an article published in Science on the subject. He did a huge meta analysis of scores of admissions tests for various disciplines (GRE, MCAT, etc) compared to various measures of grad student performance (publications, grades, time in school). He found that these tests were actually pretty good predictors, with correlations between .3 and .5. They aren't the best, but they're decent predictors of performance and the best we've got.

That being said, everyone still hates taking them.

[DefinitelyMaybe]

I recently read an article, possibly in Inside Higher Ed, that stated that the UC system was planning to stop using the GRE, but because this would cause such a massive decrease in income for ETS, they agreed to make a number of changes that were requested by UC.

That is hilarious!

They should've done it anyway!