Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 05:53:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jacob Togo <jtogo@chat.carleton.ca>
To: Sociology Graduate Students -- International <socgrad@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: GRE Scores
In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970613215552.00713bf8@email.rci.rutgers.edu>
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I hope you will pardon me if you find this mail a bit on the 'simpleton'
side but I have always been irked by the GRE.  When looking for graduate
programmes to get into, the US schools were ONES I avoided like the
plague because of the GRE test.  I found out that equally prestigious
schools outside the US did not request for GRE scores.  What I find
difficult to understand is why someone who has been through a 4 year
undergraduate programme with very good marks needs to 'reprove' his/her
abilities when that is what they must have been doing for the period they
were in school.  Are we trying to say that our schools do not give good
training enough hence the need to retest applicants?  Why is there the
need for GRE scores?  If I am asked to take TOEFL to prove that I can
function well in English since I will be a TA and because English is my
2nd language, that makes 'some' sense to me.  But GRE for everyone
everywhere?  As Foghorn Leghorn would ask "Ah say, what's the big ahdea?"
I just don't get it.

Besa.
On Fri, 13 Jun 1997, wayne brekhus wrote:

> The GRE is a standardized test that is required to get into most graduate
> programs in most fields.  It's sort of the graduate school version of the
> SAT test which most people take to get into U.S. undergraduate colleges.
> The main test has three sections (a verbal, a quantitative, and an analytic
> section).  Each section is scored on a scale of 200 (the lowest possible
> score) to 800 (the highest possible) with 500 being a median score per
> section for people taking the test.  Usually when people refer to GRE's
> scores, however, they only add the verbal and quantitative sections.  Thus,
> for instance if someone scores a 580 on the Verbal and a 620 on the
> Quantitative their GRE score is a 1200. 
> 
> 
> At 09:41 AM 6/14/97 +1000, you wrote:
> >Excuse my ignorance here, but what on earth is a GRE score? 
> >
> >Julie
> >
> >
>