You can question the source, but here is one study on the subject: https://www.ets.org/research/policy_research_reports/publications/report/2005/hsiu
Terry Sent from my iPhone > On Sep 4, 2014, at 8:39 PM, "Ganter, Philip" <pgan...@tnstate.edu> wrote: > > Well, lets examine the reasoning in this last post (for convenience -- > parallels can be found in several posts in this thread). GREs don't work for > some. Scrap them. So we establish the precedent that, if a measure does not > always predict the ability of an applicant, it is worthless. > > Lets apply our algorithm to other measures commonly used as factors in > acceptance decisions. GPA? Grade inflation, out with it! Personal > statements? Often written by committee of applicants friends and relatives. > Out with it! Publications? Many undergraduates go to schools without > undergraduate research opportunities and must use what time they have after > going to class and studying working to pay the rent and food bills, so out > with publications. Require an undergraduate degree? It is not impossible > that an applicant, studying on his or her own, could educate his- or herself > adequately enough to do well in graduate school (Recall famous scientists > without terminal degrees), so out with degrees. > > In fact, this razor will cut away any attempt to evaluate applicants and we > have reached the last post's ideal: total equality in education. All > applicants simply assigned numbers and acceptances meted out with a random > number table. > > I was a student from a small school with absolutely no reputation in science > (deservedly so). After being accepted into grad school, I was told that it > was my GRE scores that had been the decisive factor. Odd that. That evil > company actually contributing to a poor student's (I was unemployed and very > poor when the acceptance letter arrived) opportunity at grad school. > Anomaly? Evidence for the utility of GREs? Just another anecdote? > > This thread has gotten to be just grousing. The original post asked an > interesting question. What to do when indicators disagree? No one has > posted a really good answer to that conundrum (guess that's what makes it a > conundrum). Everyone seems to be willing to contribute an anecdote but we > aren't politicians, we're scientists. Anyone got any data? > > Phil Ganter > Biological Sciences > Tennessee State University > Nashville, TN > > > ________________________________ > From: Andrew Wright <marineb...@gmail.com> > Reply-To: Andrew Wright <marineb...@gmail.com> > Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2014 12:06:32 -0500 > To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU> > Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] GRE Scores In Picking a PhD Student. Do they Matter? > > Some people just don't test well, making the GREs totally useless as a > gauge of talent across all. Furthermore, I have been told that their use is > supported mainly by payments to the Universities from the company that runs > the GREs, at the costs to the already poor students. They seem merely to be > a commercial enterprise aimed at exploiting students, rather than a > reliable indicator of ability. I feel they should be scrapped as another > (albeit relatively minor) economic barrier to equality in education. > > -- > Andrew Wright, Ph.D. > > "We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after > itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we > live in will be capable of sustaining us in it." Douglas Adams > > > On 4 September 2014 07:55, Judith S. Weis <jw...@andromeda.rutgers.edu> > wrote: > >> Yes, but.... >> I have had a number of foreign students who could not write English very >> well and I had to do a lot of re-writing on their dissertations - but the >> research itself was excellent and we produced many publications. Just more >> work on the major professor's part. >> >> >> >> >>> I agree with this assessment - especially since some small liberal arts >>> colleges engage in grade inflation - GPA's are not always reliable. I >>> think there is considerable value to the GRE scores and having a minimum >>> is useful. Above that, scores vary widely and are not always predictive >>> of ultimate success. The most important thing that should be assessed - >>> and the GREs do not do an adequate job here - is writing ability. Even >>> mediocre students can complete a research project and muddle through the >>> data analysis, but when it comes to writing, the grain and chafe fall >>> into two distinct piles. The worse thing you can do for your career is >>> to take on mediocre students with poor writing skills. If a project is >>> never published then it will count for zero to your CV and career >>> development. I suggest getting the student to send you a writing >>> sample, or evaluate their writing skills based on the materials they >>> have submitted. >>> Mitch Cruzan >>> >>> >>>> On 9/3/2014 6:07 AM, Gary Grossman wrote: >>>> I think that we all look at this issue from a personal perspective, >>>> especially those that did well on standardized tests, and I've had this >>>> same argument with colleagues for 30 years, including the exact same >>>> situation where the student was up for a competitive assistantship with >>>> a >>>> mediocre GRE score and a senior-authored publication in an international >>>> journal. You don't tell us how low the score was and I'd be concerned if >>>> it >>>> was a low quantitative score, because grad students need to have a good >>>> quantitative background. But for researchers, publications are the sine >>>> quo non and render a low GRE score moot, provided the student actually >>>> earned the senior authorship (we don't have that info either and I view >>>> senior authorship differently than junior authorship, especially if >>>> there >>>> are more than two authors). The one valid argument that the "keepers of >>>> the gates" regarding the GRE is that it is the one evaluator that is >>>> equivalent across all applications,i.e., as faculty we don't have the >>>> time >>>> to evaluate if an A at Furman University is the equivalent of an A at >>>> Chapel Hill. But in the end I've found that the GRE isn't very >>>> indicative >>>> of performance by a researcher (I mean really, how could it be, it >>>> contains >>>> no information on motivation, persistence, intuition or many other >>>> characteristics that great researchers have). In fact, I've seen some of >>>> the biggest flops as graduate students come from students with very high >>>> GRE scores --- they just happen to be good at taking standardized tests >>>> but >>>> not necessarily at research. My own story -- I took the GRE in 1975 and >>>> earned somewhere between 1150 and 1190 can't remember exactly, but I do >>>> remember it was a mediocre score. I have 110+ journal articles, >>>> including >>>> multiple papers in Am. Nat, Ecology, Ecol. Monogr, Oecologia, Freshwater >>>> Biol. etc. The math is pretty easy to do <g>. cheers, g2 >>>> >>>> >>>> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Alex M. L <stenella.fronta...@yahoo.com >>> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Last weekend I got into a long discussion on the value of GRE score in >>>>> a >>>>> PhD >>>>> student. As the 2015 applicants start, I open up the discussion to the >>>>> community: >>>>> >>>>> I have a female student that has both a Masters (thesis) and >>>>> publication >>>>> with >>>>> several years research experience. However, her GRE score are quite >>>>> poor. >>>>> Should I really pass up a seemingly great applicant because of low >>>>> scores? >>>>> >>>>> If a student has a biology Masters or a publication... do GRE scores >>>>> matter? >>>>> Have we not moved past GRE scores when picking the next round of PhD >>>>> researchers for our lab(s)? >>>>> >>>>> If you have a personal story of low scores and still attaining your PhD >>>>> or >>>>> accepting a similar student... I would love to hear from you! >>>>> >>>>> Cheers! >>>>> Alex M.L >>> >>> -- >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Mitch Cruzan >>> Professor of Biology >>> Portland State University >>> Department of Biology, SRTC rm 246, PO Box 751 >>> Portland, OR 97207 USA >>> http://web.pdx.edu/~cruzan/ >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > ------ End of Forwarded Message
