U.S. students do not have to face new GRE

By Michael Sewall

Published April 10, 2007

After proposing the "most significant" changes in the 55-year history of the Graduate Record Examination, the Educational Testing Service, which administers the test, announced it would cancel the changes.

"This announcement comes as a surprise to students and the education community alike as ETS has been planning these changes for nearly two years," Kaplan Test Preparation spokesman Russell Schaeffer stated in an e-mail.

Susan Kaplan, graduate programs director at Kaplan Test Preparation, said the ETS wanted to make the GRE a better predictor of graduate school success.

"The changes reflect four years of research and redesign using the best methods of measuring the skills related to successful graduate study," Mari Pearlman, senior vice president of the ETS Higher Education Division, stated in an Aug. 11 news release.

But problems arose with the proposed changes, which included extending the test length, altering the test's format and changing the dates the GRE is administered, soon after the changes were announced.

"The decision to cancel the revised GRE General Test best serves the interests of test takers and the graduate institutions that use those scores to make admissions decisions," stated David Payne, executive director of the GRE program at ETS, in a news release. "After much debate and evaluation, it became clear that the current format offers students more convenient and flexible opportunities to test when and where they choose while still providing score-users with valid predictors of test takers' preparedness for graduate school study."

According to GRE Program Manager Jung Lee, the primary reason for canceling the launch of the revised GRE was test-taker access.

"They could not guarantee full student access to the computer-based exam," Lee said. "They couldn't guarantee a seat to every student."

One of the major changes proposed was to change the amount of administration dates from nearly every day to only 35 times each year.

"The ETS realized the lack of convenience and flexibility and risking the students' access outweighed the benefits of the changes," Lee said.

Lee said the canceled changes wouldn't affect students looking to take the GRE during the summer because most didn't know about the proposed changes.

If the changes had stayed, students would not have been able to take the test in August this year.

"It's generally good news for the students," Lee said.

Lee said the changes were originally supposed to take effect in September 2006 but were delayed until this year. He also said changes are still possible in the future.

"At this point, the ETS made it clear there will be no changes for 2007 and 2008," Lee said. "They also said they are exploring possibilities in the future for changing the test with addressing the accessibility and flexibility of the test."

The Columbia Kaplan Center offers GRE test preparation and will have a class at 10 a.m. on April 21.