A few years ago, I wrote a contentious blog post stating what is obvious to anyone reading the research on standardized testing. The evidence is that standardized tests are a useful predictor of school performance. Yet, year after year, academics (!) consistently kept fighting standardized tests. Now, the NY Times and Forbes are now running articles about how it was a mistake to eliminate standardized tests. To celebrate, I repost my earlier essay and I encourage people to click on the link above to read the kvetching.
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There’s a lot of skepticism about GRE’s and their role in graduate admissions. The folk wisdom seems to be that GRE’s aren’t terribly useful. It turns out that there is actually extensive research investigating whether GRE scores actually do predict performance in graduate school. Check out this 2001 article from Psychological Bulletin. It’s called “A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of the Predictive Validity of the Graduate Record Examinations: Implications for Graduate Student Selection and Performance.” Here’s the abstract:
This meta-analysis examined the validity of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) and undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) as predictors of graduate school performance. The study included samples from multiple disciplines, considered different criterion measures, and corrected for statistical artifacts. Data from 1,753 independent samples were included in the meta-analysis, yielding 6,589 correlations for 8 different criteria and 82,659 graduate students. The results indicated that the GRE and UGPA are generalizably valid predictors of graduate grade point average, Ist-year graduate grade point average, comprehensive examination scores, publication citation counts, and faculty ratings. GRE correlations with degree attainment and research productivity were consistently positive; however, some lower 90% credibility intervals included 0. Subject Tests tended to be better predictors than the Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical tests.
Wow. GRE’s aren’t perfect, but they sure seem to do the job. With respect to graduate admissions, this basically says “go with GRE scores and grades unless there is strong credible signalling.” Any other interpretations? Any GRE skeptics willing to defend their position?
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