“Student performance measures that don’t perform”
“These results add to the ongoing discussion about how graduate admissions decisions should be made, particularly in light of previous findings that the GRE is biased against students from underrepresented groups. The new studies emphasize that admissions committees should review applicants holistically and rely less on GRE scores in making decisions — a point that many acknowledge, but which requires significant time and energy to do well…
among the UNC group, students with the strongest reference letters produced more first-author papers, while those with weaker letters tended to publish as middle authors or not at all…
In line with the results of the new studies, Weiner found that scores on the general GRE exam and undergraduate GPA did not distinguish between high- and low-performing graduate students in his program. But approaches to using GRE scores and GPA for grad school admissions continue to be mixed. Weiner believes that GREs are not useful, and Leslie Vosshall, a professor of neurogenetics and behavior at The Rockefeller University in New York City who recently started a Twitter discussion about GRE use, agrees: She never considers GRE scores because of its reported biases. She also finds GPA largely irrelevant because of the lack of uniformity in grading standards between undergraduate institutions.”
