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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy

Monday, June 16, 2014

A test that fails

By Casey Miller & Keivan Stassun
Nature 303-304(2014) doi:10.1038/nj7504-303a
Published online 11 June 2014

Universities in the United States rely too heavily on the graduate record examinations (GRE) — a standardized test introduced in 1949 that is an admissions requirement for most US graduate schools. This practice is poor at selecting the most capable students and severely restricts the flow of women and minorities into the sciences.

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So what should universities do? Instead of filtering by GRE scores, graduate programmes can select applicants on the basis of skills and character attributes that are more predictive of doing well in scientific research and of ultimate employability in the STEM workforce. Appraisers should look not only at indicators of previous achievements, but also at evidence of ability to overcome the tribulations of becoming a PhD-level scientist.