Why the GRE is a Useless Metric for Grad School Admissions
I’m angry.
Angry at the GRE.
See, I’ve never been great at standardized testing. By no means awful at these sort of tests…but not great either.
For those of you unfamiliar with the GRE, though perhaps interested in some day applying to grad school or perhaps are already in the process of doing so, the GRE is one of the main exams you complete as an application requirement for grad programs. It’s broken down pretty simply into a few sections of verbal (writing, reading comprehension, vocabulary) and a few sections of quantitative (math).
(The GRE Wiki Page describes the whole thing much better than I ever could.)
My first and only attempt at the GRE happened two years ago. My scores, unsurprisingly to me, were pretty average — not bad, but nothing to brag about.
Admittedly, I didn’t do much preparation. And of the preparation I did do, I spent far too much of it on Math (because I hadn’t taken a Math class in many years), only to find out that as someone who studies English, the quantitative section of the GRE meant nothing.
On top of that, the M.A. program I eventual received admission into didn’t even require GRE scores.
