Starting Aug. 1, aspiring graduate and business school students hoping to apply to master’s degree programs this fall will soon face a vastly different Graduate Record Exam.
The GRE, a standardized test and admission requirement for many U.S. graduate schools, is administered by Educational Testing Services in the areas of verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, analytical writing and critical thinking skills. Presently, the exam consists of four sections; the first evaluates writing aptitude, and the other three are in multiple-choice formats assessing verbal and math skills. Results are evaluated with a 200 to 800-point scoring scale in 10-point increments.
This enumeration method will be replaced with a scoring scale of 130 to 170 points, in one-point increments. The quantitative (math) section will include less geometry and more data analysis, and the numeric entry questions will prompt test takers to provide answers on their own, without the aid of multiple choice.
The new GRE will last nearly four hours, roughly an hour longer than before, and can only be retaken every 60 days, in contrast to the once-per-calendar-month rules currently in place. In addition, students will be permitted to skip around sections freely and return to answers later, another new aspect. An on-screen calculator will also be provided.
Kaplan, a New York City-based higher education program provider, is working to spread the word about the testing changes which, Director of Graduate Programs Lee Weiss said, it has deemed significant.
“Everything about the test is changing,” Weiss said.
Calls for the test’s reform, Weiss explained, have stemmed from a perceived imbalance of scoring scales, where a perfect score (800) in verbal reasoning places a student in the 99th percentile, while a similar score in quantitative reasoning only ranks in the 94th.
“The scoring scales are off,” Weiss said. “Too many people on the math side are getting perfect scores, and not enough people on the verbal side are getting perfect scores.”
In terms of the number of tests administered internationally each year, 2009 saw approximately 675,000 student examinations. Weiss said he thinks the yet-to-be-released 2010 numbers will be higher still, creating a clear harbinger for the upcoming GRE season.
“2010 (numbers) are going to be similar to that if not bigger,” Weis said. “We are talking about a lot of people worldwide.”
University Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Anthropology professor Sandra Morgen said the test’s modifications are a result of the old scoring scale being too broad.
“On the old test, the 10-point increments were fairly meaningless,” Morgen said. “(ETS) is trying to create a more meaningful, user-friendly scale.”
Morgen has concerns about the new GRE’s learning curve, but remains confident that test-takers and administers will adapt quickly.
“The faculty and admission community has used this other scale for a long, long time,” Morgen said. “We are going to have to have time for learning.”
ETS, Morgen added, places its mission of providing accurate and substantive examinations above its lust for capital, forging the new exam in students’ best interests, rather than stockholders’.
“The people who work for ETS I have come to know for some time now,” Morgen said. “These are not bureaucrats. These are professionals who are trained in measurement. They did a huge amount of research to change this test.”
One hiccup that University officials and testing agencies are anticipating involves ETS’ need to calibrate the first batch of tests come August. According to a Kaplan press release regarding GRE changes, test takers who complete the exam in August, September or October won’t receive their official scores back until November — meaning they will have to wait up to three months to complete graduate school applications. This will force many students to miss early application deadlines, and so prospective GRE-takers needing their scores before November are being advised to take the old version early.
“If you need your scores before Nov. 1, then you need to take the test before Aug. 1,” Morgen said. “That’s a really important thing for people to know.”
“To everyone applying next fall, we would strongly advise them to take the current GRE,” Weiss said. “It’s always good to have options.”
To help bolster the new exam’s sample size, ETS is offering students a 50 percent discount between August 1 and September 30. The deal, Morgen said, will effectively give the ETS more scores to analyze and help calibrate the new ranking system.
“They want lots of people to give them a much larger database,” Morgen said. “The reason for that is the concept of calibration, (and) they will need to use this large pool of tests to give the scores meaning. They expect a lot of people to be taking the test at the 50 percent discount.”
Fourth-year undergraduate architecture major Carson Howell is considering taking the new GRE in the fall and said she feels confident that her scores, when compared to the general pool, will still accurately reflect her scholastic aptitude.
“It doesn’t worry me, no,” Howell said. “It means that it’s going to be harder for everybody across the board.”
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