Vanderbilt Study Calls GRE ‘A Test That Fails’

The Vanderbilt-Fisk PhD bridge program has found success using interviews to determine admission rather than the GRE. Credit: KI Seattle via Flickr

The GRE may not be the best way of determining who is fit for graduate school, according to a new study co-authored by a Vanderbilt and Fisk University professor.

Published in Nature magazine, “A Test That Fails” shows that women and minorities are often left out due to their statistically low test scores on the graduate record examination. The study points out that candidates can be evaluated better by other methods, namely an interview.

Vanderbilt professor Keivan Stassun, who co-authored the study, says that interviews give admission offices a better view of the candidates as people.

“We have more confidence when we admit them, that they really have the right stuff,” Stassun says. “In addition to being smart and capable academically, they also have the drive and the perseverance and the know-how from previous experience, on how to get through challenging experiences.”

Stassun’s statistical analysis shows that in standard graduate programs, only about half of students who start  actually graduate. But at the Fisk-Vanderbilt Masters-PhD Bridge Program, the new interview method has led to success rates of more than 80 percent. Of those students, around 85 percent would have been eliminated by traditional GRE based acceptance.

Other schools such as MIT, Columbia University, and Ohio State are also looking at making changes to their graduate school admissions based on Vanderbilt-Fisk’s success.