ScoreSelect Option In GRE A Big Hit Among Indian Students: Research

One out of four Indian students are reaping the benefit of the ScoreSelect option of the popular Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Test. Also, more than 60 per cent of the Indian students who took the GRE General Test a second time scored higher on verbal reasoning while 66 per cent scored higher on the quantitative reasoning, shows an internal research undertaken by the GRE Program.

GRE is a standardised test that is an admissions requirement for most graduate schools in the United States. And the ScoreSelect option allows students to take the GRE test more than once to send schools their best scores.

As per the research, in 2014, the per cent of people in India taking the GRE revised general test a second time grew 14 per cent compared to 2013, and a new analysis by Educational Testing Service (ETS) revealed that most people who took the test a second time did better.

“During 2014, the number of repeat tests reached an all-time high. Our research showed that nearly one out of four people in India take the GRE test more than once,” said Dawn Piacentino, director of communication and services for the GRE Programme at ETS.

She said adding that some of the GRE program’s beneficial policies are contributing factors leading to repeat testing. “We introduced the ScoreSelect option for GRE test takers, so that students could take a GRE test, once or more than once, and have up to five years to send what they felt were their best scores.”

Since its introduction, the number of people retaking a GRE test has risen. The GRE test also has test taker-friendly features i.e the ability to skip questions and go back, or change answers within a section which provides value. Furthermore, a recent ETS study showed that 95 per cent of GRE test takers changed at least one answer, and most improved their scores.

“Not everyone’s score goes up every time, but the data show that test takers do better when they have the ability to thoughtfully change their answers and when they take the test a second time,” said Piacentino.

GRE scores are accepted by thousands of graduate-level schools worldwide, including more than 1,200 business schools that now accept GRE scores for admission into their MBA programme. In 2014, the number of people taking a GRE test with intended study in business grew by 18 per cent compared to the prior year and, according to a recent Kaplan survey, nearly eight out of 10 MBA programms actually have no preference about GRE scores vs. other standardised scores.

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