GRE: important or irrelevant?

While debate over the Graduate Records Examination’s value has drawn national attention, it remains a prominent admissions factor at Penn graduate schools.

In addition to an overhaul of the test announced this winter, the GRE has caught students’ interests at Penn because for the first time this fall, Wharton will allow Master of Business Administration applicants to submit the GRE instead of the Graduate Management Admissions Test, or GMAT.

In December, the Educational Testing Service introduced a new grading scale, an increased testing time and other modifications in the test’s three sections that will take effect in 2011. For example, both antonyms and analogies were eliminated from new verbal section.

Though most Ivy League graduate programs see uniformly high GRE scores, they all take the test into consideration.

“The GRE is certainly more than a formality, but it is certainly not a major factor in our admissions process,” said Sarah Hale, associate dean of graduate student services at Cornell University. She added that 95 of Cornell’s 96 graduate programs require the test.

Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Ralph Rosen agreed with Hale and emphasized that GRE scores are interpreted differently from program to program.

For instance, he wrote in an e-mail, “A student applying in English or Classical Studies […] will be better off scoring higher in the Verbal part than the Math part, if the scores are going to be unequal.”

Both Hale and Rosen said they “doubted” the future changes would alter the way their schools assessed the test scores.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education suggested, among other theories, that graduate school admissions offices do not need additional information about an applicant who has an otherwise strong application.

In the Wharton graduate program, the admissions debate is about whether the GRE is an adequate substitute for the GMAT. The EMBA and MBA programs at Dartmouth College, Harvard University, New York University and Stanford University and the EMBA programs at Columbia and Georgetown Universities already accept the GRE.

The test will “attract a broader applicant pool, including dual-degree students, younger applicants and international applicants from far-flung countries without GMAT access,” Wharton Admissions Director J.J. Cutler told Business Week.

Veritas Prep’s Director of MBA Admissions Research Scott Shrum explained that business schools are looking for “high-potential applicants, who are young in their careers and maybe had been going down another path.”

If such students decide that they want an MBA, they do not have to worry about spending more time and money taking another test, he said.

First-year Wharton MBA Sam Miller believes the GMAT is a more effective way to assess Wharton applicants. Miller took the GRE in order to apply to a previous professional program.

“I’m actually surprised by how often content of the GMAT is mentioned in my classes,” Miller said. “The GMAT is much more relevant to Wharton and to business school than the GRE.”

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