GRE Scores are predictive of what??? Opinions please.

[TheMercySeat]

I've already addressed this in another post: 

 

But there is also a selection bias. People in physics and philosophy tend to score higher than people in education and english, and I think that physics and philosophy is much better preparation for the GRE than the latter 2 majors. And there is a major demographic disparity between those two groups. 

 

 

Professors and graduate students have to do different things, the GRE isn't meant to test one's ability to be a tenured professor.

MS students outnumber PhD students, and the GRE is used for MS candidates.  PhD students fail for a number of reasons. This is just one test. No one claims its perfect, but people who do poorly dismiss it because A) they can't test well they are not who they thought they are. I'd rather not have the test, but lets not be completely dismissive just because we aren't good at something. Thats not how we get better at stuff. I have difficulty with languages, I still passed latin, spanish and chinese. The difference is I don't whine about it.

 

You didn't express it in the context of gender, though. I think it is safe to assume that economic disparities cannot account for the gender gap. Moreover, income typically increases with age, so socioeconomic status probably does not explain why GRE Q decreases with age. In fact, this latter reason was why I suggested the reasonable possibility that PhD candidates have stronger GRE scores than their professors.

 

It's ironic that you mentioned physics-- APS has taken issue with the gender gap (http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199607/gender.cfm), as did Nature (http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7504-303a). Specifically in the context of the physics GRE, Miller and Stassun (2014) state "According to data from Educational Testing Service (ETS), based in Princeton, New Jersey, the company that administers the GRE, women score 80 points lower on average in the physical sciences than do men, and African Americans score 200 points below white people. In simple terms, the GRE is a better indicator of sex and skin colour than of ability and ultimate success." 

 

 

You would probably 'whine' more about your struggles with Latin, Spanish, and Chinese if they dictated your future, and if your (presumed) lower marks got you tossed from your PhD program and locked out of all PhD-level careers.

Edited February 18, 2015 by TheMercySeat

[GeoDUDE!]

You would probably 'whine' more about your struggles with Latin, Spanish, and Chinese if they dictated your future, and if your (presumed) lower marks got you tossed from your PhD program and locked out of all PhD-level careers.

 

 

They did. My undergraduate GPA is 3.05, probably equivalent to a 150/150 GRE. I had to do a masters first. It was in an undesirable location, at an unknown school, and while I enjoyed working there, would have preferred not to have made that detour. You can make all the assumptions you want, that's fine. I have trouble with languages, so I spent 2 years working on something I didn't have to so I could get into a quality PhD program. But those are also college level courses. The general GRE doesn't test anything at the college level. I'm proof that you can get into a good PhD program despite flaws in their application. 

I'd be really interested to see what the gender splits look outside the united states, in places where the myth (http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/the-myth-of-im-bad-at-math/280914/) doesn't exist. 

 

The test may very well be flawed, I don't know if it is. I have never said it isn't. I do respect the fact that there is a gender bias in academia. My mother went to pharmacy school because her research advisor in undergrad (chemistry) told her she was too stupid to get a PhD. That kind of thing happens more to women than men, especially in STEM.

 

We aren't going to solve gender (or even help) equality by getting rid of a test. We are going to solve it by treating women with the respect and equality they deserve. If you believe otherwise, its a complete disservice to the cause. 

 

We might help gender equality by getting rid of social stigmas that are rooted in education, starting from preschool all the way to tenure committees. 

 

Why do we use GPA to evaluate candidates either? In my program, classes are a joke, a formality required by the graduate school to be enrolled in a doctoral program. 

 

Isn't it possible that programs want to get as much information on the student as possible? The truth is that we will never know how the students who did poorly on the GRE despite having a reasonable application beside will do in graduate school. How do we know that they won't have a higher drop out/ failure rate than the others selected? Furthermore, of the students who do well in graduate school despite the GRE, they were evaluated suited for other reasons. Maybe their SOPs were just dynamite and the other low GRE candidates were just not as hot as they really thought. 

 

But more importantly, graduate programs aren't stupid. They track students success internally, see who does well and who doesn't. I guess in the name of fairness, graduate programs could take some of the money they are given for research and teaching assistants and go through the hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of apps without any basic criteria. 

 

A lot of graduate programs don't put a lot of weight on the GRE. What often happens is that the graduate school has minimum requirements: like a 3.0 GPA or a 300 combined on a GRE. Perhaps just getting rid of that minimum requirement would do a lot of good. I'm not sure. 300 seems awfully easy to get.  

 

Difficult problems are hard by definition, but solving these types of problems should be a graduate student's bread and butter. Perhaps if someone can't hunker down and relearn all the math and vocabulary they should have learned when they were in high school it should be harder for them to get in graduate school. Why shouldn't it be? Because the people who did poorly who did poorly on the GRE but somehow made it in did well? Isn't that selection bias ?

[TheMercySeat]

They did. My undergraduate GPA is 3.05, probably equivalent to a 150/150 GRE. I had to do a masters first. It was in an undesirable location, at an unknown school, and while I enjoyed working there, would have preferred not to have made that detour. You can make all the assumptions you want, that's fine. I have trouble with languages, so I spent 2 years working on something I didn't have to so I could get into a quality PhD program. But those are also college level courses. The general GRE doesn't test anything at the college level. I'm proof that you can get into a good PhD program despite flaws in their application.

I'd be really interested to see what the gender splits look outside the united states, in places where the myth (http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/the-myth-of-im-bad-at-math/280914/) doesn't exist.

The test may very well be flawed, I don't know if it is. I have never said it isn't. I do respect the fact that there is a gender bias in academia. My mother went to pharmacy school because her research advisor in undergrad (chemistry) told her she was too stupid to get a PhD. That kind of thing happens more to women than men, especially in STEM.

We aren't going to solve gender (or even help) equality by getting rid of a test. We are going to solve it by treating women with the respect and equality they deserve. If you believe otherwise, its a complete disservice to the cause.

We might help gender equality by getting rid of social stigmas that are rooted in education, starting from preschool all the way to tenure committees.

Why do we use GPA to evaluate candidates either? In my program, classes are a joke, a formality required by the graduate school to be enrolled in a doctoral program.

Isn't it possible that programs want to get as much information on the student as possible? The truth is that we will never know how the students who did poorly on the GRE despite having a reasonable application beside will do in graduate school. How do we know that they won't have a higher drop out/ failure rate than the others selected? Furthermore, of the students who do well in graduate school despite the GRE, they were evaluated suited for other reasons. Maybe their SOPs were just dynamite and the other low GRE candidates were just not as hot as they really thought.

But more importantly, graduate programs aren't stupid. They track students success internally, see who does well and who doesn't. I guess in the name of fairness, graduate programs could take some of the money they are given for research and teaching assistants and go through the hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of apps without any basic criteria.

A lot of graduate programs don't put a lot of weight on the GRE. What often happens is that the graduate school has minimum requirements: like a 3.0 GPA or a 300 combined on a GRE. Perhaps just getting rid of that minimum requirement would do a lot of good. I'm not sure. 300 seems awfully easy to get.

Difficult problems are hard by definition, but solving these types of problems should be a graduate student's bread and butter. Perhaps if someone can't hunker down and relearn all the math and vocabulary they should have learned when they were in high school it should be harder for them to get in graduate school. Why shouldn't it be? Because the people who did poorly who did poorly on the GRE but somehow made it in did well? Isn't that selection bias ?

My mistake-- I didn't realize that coursework in Chinese, Latin, and Spanish were mandatory requirements for admission into your program-- atleast I assume that is what you're implying, seeing how you're trying to connect your language coursework to graduate admissions as I am connecting the GRE into PhD admission requirements.

In my discipline, coursework is essential-- students typically learn data analysis techniques, theory, and methodology that directly connect to program evaluation, intervention, etc. some programs even offer coursework in grant writing, which I personally think is a good idea because the stakes are a bit too high for trial and error.

On tracking student success... I politely dissent. As an educational researcher, institutional researchers seem as rare as an oasis in the desert, and largely overworked. While institutions take an interest in student success, they typically lack the resources for large scale tracking. Moreover, most PhD programs (at least in my discipline) lack the cohort sizes necessary to draw meaningful conclusions on the basis, let's say, one student with lower GREs dropping out. They can increase sample size with longitudinal tracking across cohorts, but then that neglects to control for cohort effects/contextual factors. Further, when I look at admissions statistics, GRE scores have been consistently increasing over the past decade. Based on the belief that the GRE predicts success, and the fact that universities have been selecting students with higher GRE scores, would it be safe to assume that all older cohorts (as in, people that were admitted 5 or 10 years ago) with lower GREs universally fail out?

Of course not!

Edited February 18, 2015 by TheMercySeat

[GeoDUDE!]

My mistake-- I didn't realize that coursework in Chinese, Latin, and Spanish were mandatory requirements for admission into your program-- atleast I assume that is what you're implying, seeing how you're trying to connect your language coursework to graduate admissions as I am connecting the GRE into PhD admission requirements.

 

They were requirements to get a degree (I have a liberal arts degree in phyiscs), and a degree is required for graduate school. While I made the minimum GPA , the minimum GPA is hardly enough to get into a PhD program just like the minimum GRE is hardly enough. Anyone can take the GRE,given funds, just like anyone can take college courses given funds. 

 

Are GRE scores increasing in every demographic? Or just white/asian males? Notice how close the male/female splits are. They are a few points between each other. Is there any evidence that someone was denied admissions over someone else souly because their GRE was even 5 points less than someone else? 

 

Presumably, if the older student gets into a program, he/she is qualified to get through it regardless of GRE. This is why there is a selection bias. He/She had to overcome that low score. Presumably, the low GRE candidates that get into graduate school are the best low GRE candidates of the crop. There are plenty of people with high GREs that don't get into graduate school. 

 

It is very important to contextualize statistics. There are deep problems, but there hasn't been any evidence that the GRE is inherently more flawed than GPA. 

 

 

In the early 1900s, college admissions was almost souly based on test scores and GPA. Harvard's alumni and donators started to complain that too many jews were getting admission (at one point almost 50% of incoming classes). To combat this, Harvard started using a holistic process similar to the one all colleges use today. Their rational was to try and predict who would be most successful upon graduation of Harvard, not who was most successful upon graduation high school.  http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12

 

How many people would replace the people in graduate school now without the GRE? How big of a demographic is it? Doesn't it seem more likely that the problem is getting women to apply to graduate school in STEM? Is the GRE stopping that from happening or is it something much more significant. 

[TheMercySeat]

They were requirements to get a degree (I have a liberal arts degree in phyiscs), and a degree is required for graduate school. While I made the minimum GPA , the minimum GPA is hardly enough to get into a PhD program just like the minimum GRE is hardly enough. Anyone can take the GRE,given funds, just like anyone can take college courses given funds. 

 

Are GRE scores increasing in every demographic? Or just white/asian males? Notice how close the male/female splits are. They are a few points between each other. Is there any evidence that someone was denied admissions over someone else souly because their GRE was even 5 points less than someone else? 

 

Presumably, if the older student gets into a program, he/she is qualified to get through it regardless of GRE. This is why there is a selection bias. He/She had to overcome that low score. Presumably, the low GRE candidates that get into graduate school are the best low GRE candidates of the crop. There are plenty of people with high GREs that don't get into graduate school. 

 

It is very important to contextualize statistics. There are deep problems, but there hasn't been any evidence that the GRE is inherently more flawed than GPA. 

 

 

In the early 1900s, college admissions was almost souly based on test scores and GPA. Harvard's alumni and donators started to complain that too many jews were getting admission (at one point almost 50% of incoming classes). To combat this, Harvard started using a holistic process similar to the one all colleges use today. Their rational was to try and predict who would be most successful upon graduation of Harvard, not who was most successful upon graduation high school.  http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12

 

How many people would replace the people in graduate school now without the GRE? How big of a demographic is it? Doesn't it seem more likely that the problem is getting women to apply to graduate school in STEM? Is the GRE stopping that from happening or is it something much more significant. 

 

I stand corrected-- Chinese, Spanish and Latin were apparently part of your degree requirements!

Baffling.

Not even MIT, arguably one of the best program in the country, requires physics BS students to learn those three languages in their curriculum (http://web.mit.edu/physics//OldFiles/current/undergrad/undergrad_program.pdf). 

 

At least I assume you are implying that you were required to take those classes, otherwise you are making a moot point, since I am solely interested in the context of the GRE as a requirement to get into graduate school. 

 

I am not sure what your argument on Jews has to do with anything.Historically women were locked out of many elite universities and PhD programs, too. 

 

The gap of "only a few points" is kind of a big deal. Men average at 152 Q, while women average at 147 Q. That's the difference between the 28th percentile, vs. the 48th percentile. Know anybody who scored within the 28th percentile that got into a graduate program... ever? Only a few points is kinda a big deal...

 

The GRE does indeed cause problems, hence why physics professors from R1 institutions are advocating for diminished reliance on the GRE in admissions practices (http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7504-303a)

Edited February 19, 2015 by TheMercySeat

[moochie]

I stand corrected-- Chinese, Spanish and Latin were apparently part of your degree requirements!

Baffling.

Not even MIT, arguably one of the best program in the country, requires physics BS students to learn those three languages in their curriculum (http://web.mit.edu/physics//OldFiles/current/undergrad/undergrad_program.pdf). 

 

At least I assume you are implying that you were required to take those classes, otherwise you are making a moot point, since I am solely interested in the context of the GRE as a requirement to get into graduate school. 

 

 

I also went to a liberal arts college like GeoDUDE! and double majored in physics and chemistry, and yes, there was a language requirement (I took German and Spanish). There are also about a million other distribution requirements. That's how liberal arts colleges work. You get a well rounded degree, and wind up being required to take a lot of classes outside your major(s). It pulled my GPA down a little too, but I still got a top notch education from a top-10 liberal arts school so I consider it worth it.

 

MIT is not a liberal arts college, so they would not have that requirement for their physics students. MIT is a technology oriented school, and they may very well be the best in physics, but that doesn't mean they have the most requirements of their physics majors. Your points that MIT's physics program doesn't have a language requirement and that GeoDUDE!'s difficult language classes are unrelated to his GPA and degree just seem misguided and misinformed to me.

 

Also, I'm a woman and scored 330+ combined. I hadn't done the kind of math on the GRE since 10th grade in high school, so I studied for about a month beforehand because I knew I needed a refresher.

 

I don't really believe there is an excuse for someone with a bachelor's degree to not be able to score 300+ unless they have a documented testing disability. The test is high school material. Even if you did not have a good high school education due to your circumstances, you still have plenty of time and opportunities in college to learn the basic math and vocab required to perform reasonably well on a standardized test. If you aren't self-aware enough to know if you need to study, or if you can't be bothered to put forth the time or effort to study a bit for a test (that you may or may not agree with the purpose of), then I'd argue that's indicative that you won't be willing to put forth time and effort into other things that may be required of you in grad school.

 

I don't think the GRE tests your academic knowledge or abilities, but I do think it tests your ability to suck it up and put in enough time to do well on a fairly basic task. Just my take on the matter.

[GeoDUDE!]

The GRE does indeed cause problems, hence why physics professors from R1 institutions are advocating for diminished reliance on the GRE in admissions practices (http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7504-303a)

 

Sure, but every type of model has its problems. And its important to note that anything that someone uses for prediction (GPA, LOR, GRE, SOP) are just models with a bunch of assumptions based in them.

 

I can write a novel on how terrible LOR have gotten in the modern age, with almost all of them being overwhelmingly positive, how is one to distinguish  between candidates? Just by name of the written? Why should luck, that a student happened to go to a school  with a famous person in some obscure field that they had no idea about when they were choosing college, be such a determining factor? 

 

I'm really interested in your counter point to my selection bias argument.  And maybe the GRE is weighted much heavier than I thought, but do you really know? At super competitive programs, even people who have 4.0 and almost perfect (or perfect) GREs get rejected.  If there was that much weight, shouldn't they almost always get into the schools they want?

 

You are probably right in that graduate programs don't think enough about what the GRE, or any application requirement actually measures. I think they would probably be honest about that if you asked them up front. But I also think the GRE is also the best kind of standardization we have, since grade inflation is everywhere.  Just like Obama's healthcare act, graduate admissions is an imperfect solution to a problem. What's a better solution ?

[TheMercySeat]

I also went to a liberal arts college like GeoDUDE! and double majored in physics and chemistry, and yes, there was a language requirement (I took German and Spanish). There are also about a million other distribution requirements. That's how liberal arts colleges work. You get a well rounded degree, and wind up being required to take a lot of classes outside your major(s). It pulled my GPA down a little too, but I still got a top notch education from a top-10 liberal arts school so I consider it worth it.

MIT is not a liberal arts college, so they would not have that requirement for their physics students. MIT is a technology oriented school, and they may very well be the best in physics, but that doesn't mean they have the most requirements of their physics majors. Your points that MIT's physics program doesn't have a language requirement and that GeoDUDE!'s difficult language classes are unrelated to his GPA and degree just seem misguided and misinformed to me.

Also, I'm a woman and scored 330+ combined. I hadn't done the kind of math on the GRE since 10th grade in high school, so I studied for about a month beforehand because I knew I needed a refresher.

I don't really believe there is an excuse for someone with a bachelor's degree to not be able to score 300+ unless they have a documented testing disability. The test is high school material. Even if you did not have a good high school education due to your circumstances, you still have plenty of time and opportunities in college to learn the basic math and vocab required to perform reasonably well on a standardized test. If you aren't self-aware enough to know if you need to study, or if you can't be bothered to put forth the time or effort to study a bit for a test (that you may or may not agree with the purpose of), then I'd argue that's indicative that you won't be willing to put forth time and effort into other things that may be required of you in grad school.

I don't think the GRE tests your academic knowledge or abilities, but I do think it tests your ability to suck it up and put in enough time to do well on a fairly basic task. Just my take on the matter.

I also went to a LAC and they had one language requirement... Not three! moreover, most institutions I've been affliated with have auditing options so that GPAs don't get slammed.

Somebody in my position (1) hasn't taken GRE-relevant math in over a decade, and (2) does stat on a daily basis on my job. I'm talking... Data modeling, anchoring vignettes, and the like, not just calculating mean, median and mode. So yeah, I had to relearn a lot for the GRE Q, and I know I'm in good company when my quant psychologist colleague who went to UCLA told me that he spent 3 months FT studying for the GRE. It can be challenging when GRE Q bears no relevance on the math you've done in the past decade.

Also consider (for both you and geo) evidence of under prediction (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED424810.pdf old article- more current article- http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2013-09150-001/). Under prediction undermines test validity-- you can read about it more on your own (underprediction, test validity, differential prediction, test bias) on your own because I certainly don't have the time/energy to go into a psychometrics discussion.

One final point: saying "I'm a female and I got a near perfect GRE" is like pointing to Obama and saying "see?! Racism doesn't exist! PROOF." One outlier above the normal distribution (at the aggregate level and when subgrouped by gender) does not discredit the normal distribution (see 'sample size insensitivity')

Edited February 19, 2015 by TheMercySeat

[moochie]

Pointing out my gender and score was simply to show that I had personal experience with the issue I was speaking about. As a woman in STEM who studied for and then took the GRE and did well, these are my opinions. I don't see how stating my own background with the topic being discussed is at all related to racism and Obama. I gave context to my post, and at no point said that because I scored what I did, then all women in STEM and other minorities should be following suit. I also never said that I was the norm for GRE scores. I don't think it's easy or normal for anyone to score in the 90th+ percentile on everything. That's the definition of 90th percentile.

I did say that anyone should be able to pull at least a 300 combined if they put a little effort in. 300 is the baseline for most schools, so as long as you can score above it you often means your application gets some sort of holistic review where other things like GPA, past research, LOR, etc are considered. If you need to study three months full time to be able to get 300+ on the GRE then I honestly would have doubts about that persons ability to learn material efficiently. Your friend at UCLA may be the exception to that, but as you said exceptional cases do not discredit the overall trend.

I took a number of psych classes in undergrad too. I know test bias is real and self fulfilling stereotypes are a serious issue with standardized testing. I don't believe it's a strong enough effect to force an otherwise totally capable potential grad student to score below 300.

[TheMercySeat]

I did say that anyone should be able to pull at least a 300 combined if they put a little effort in. 300 is the baseline for most schools, so as long as you can score above it you often means your application gets some sort of holistic review where other things like GPA, past research, LOR, etc are considered. If you need to study three months full time to be able to get 300+ on the GRE then I honestly would have doubts about that persons ability to learn material efficiently. Your friend at UCLA may be the exception to that, but as you said exceptional cases do not discredit the overall trend.

I took a number of psych classes in undergrad too. I know test bias is real and self fulfilling stereotypes are a serious issue with standardized testing. I don't believe it's a strong enough effect to force an otherwise totally capable potential grad student to score below 300.

300?!

300 isn't baseline for PhD psych admissions, and certainly not UCLA psych

Also encouraged: reading the links on underprediction

Edited February 20, 2015 by TheMercySeat

[moochie]

300?!

300 isn't baseline for PhD psych admissions, and certainly not UCLA psych

Also encouraged: reading the links on underprediction

You're right. UCLA's graduate psychology department says on their website that have actually have no minimum required GRE score for the general GRE or the subject GRE. 300 is just a number I've seen on a number of admissions pages in my own grad school searching (for both PhD geoscience and PhD engineering programs) that is indicated as a baseline, much like a 3.0 GPA.

The topic asked for opinions on what the GRE is predictive of, and I shared my opinion. Maybe psychology PhD programs are actually super concerned with the GRE and expect everyone to score 90th percentile. I wouldn't know, I'm not a psych PhD hopeful. Even if that was the case, it doesn't change or influence my opinion that everyone should be able to score 300 with a little effort, and that the GRE is mostly predictive of a persons ability to put forth effort to complete a required task.

[TheMercySeat]

You're right. UCLA's graduate psychology department says on their website that have actually have no minimum required GRE score for the general GRE or the subject GRE. 300 is just a number I've seen on a number of admissions pages in my own grad school searching (for both PhD geoscience and PhD engineering programs) that is indicated as a baseline, much like a 3.0 GPA.

The topic asked for opinions on what the GRE is predictive of, and I shared my opinion. Maybe psychology PhD programs are actually super concerned with the GRE and expect everyone to score 90th percentile. I wouldn't know, I'm not a psych PhD hopeful. Even if that was the case, it doesn't change or influence my opinion that everyone should be able to score 300 with a little effort, and that the GRE is mostly predictive of a persons ability to put forth effort to complete a required task.

of course not! that's looking for a lawsuit. Programs don't openly advertise cut scores, but that doesn't mean they don't employ them-- programs just don't advertise the use of cut scores out of fear of legal repercussions. I work in psychometrics and have received explicit training on this issue.

Alternately, UCLA advertises averages that are largely in the 90th percentile/subscale.... So they don't advertise cut scores, but clearly nobody with a combined 300, or even a 310, has a snowball's chance in hell at UCLA a psych. 310 + combined MIGHT get psych PhD applicants into a bottom tier program if they have years of research experience. The implications of scoring 300 are much different from my discipline than they are from yours.

Edited February 20, 2015 by TheMercySeat

[GeoDUDE!]

Is psychology a male dominated field? 

 

Another thing: I only took the two practice tests when I studied for the GRE. There was really not much effort at all. I know this isn't the case for everyone, but I don't think myself some genius or great test taker. I just learned the material when I was supposed to. I scored ~325

Edited February 20, 2015 by GeoDUDE!

[moochie]

Also, I think this chart is kind of interesting when talking about GRE scores between disciplines. http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table4.pdf

 

It breaks scoring trends down by academic major. Physics majors actually score on average a combine 317, while psychology majors score on average a combined 301. You could argue that implies that for a physics major to score 300 shows that they are seriously below average compared to other physics majors, while for a psych major to score 300 it shows they are approximately average when compared to other psych majors. Obviously that doesn't account for gender, socioeconomic, race, etc but I still find it fascinating none the less.

[GeoDUDE!]

And to reiterate my pervious point, the fields that tend to score higher also tend to be male dominated fields. Physics, Philosophy and Engineering are male heavy fields, so perhaps there is also a major bias ? 

 

The point you made to counter this point was the Physics GRE, but that is a completely different can of worms. I know people who have gotten into MIT physics with a 40% on the Physics GRE, its a completely different test that is probably too difficult. 

[YoungOldMan]

The GRE is very expensive. A reduction in the cost would be an interesting factor to see if people with low incomes can improve their scores.

Yea people can say that you can improve your score if you prepare, whatever. For people who are in school or just getting out of school, they have plenty of free time and most of the time support from their parents. As you grow older and have other responsabilities, work, etc... it just becomes difficult to invest money/time on such a type of test, specially for people of countries that are very poor. Internationals for example, don't get to have fee application waivers most of the time. The whole process is a real burden.

 

I would say that having a subject test would be a lot better, but the options to take it abroad are very limited. All this universities claim to give equal of opportunity which is not really true when they ask for tests that could be very diffucult to take for certain individuals.

I think that anyone with enough time, good preparation material and of course a good level of english can obtain very good scores. However I think that native english speakers or people who have learned english since an early age will always do better, because you can read a lot faster.

 

Edited February 23, 2015 by YoungOldMan