[Phys-L] GRE worse than useless

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

"Multi-institutional study of GRE scores as predictors of STEM PhD degree completion: GRE gets a low mark"
October 29, 2018
    Sandra L. Petersen,
    Evelyn S. Erenrich,
    Dovev L. Levine,
    Jim Vigoreaux,
    Krista Gile


ABSTRACT

> The process of selecting students likely to complete science,
> technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) doctoral programs has
> not changed greatly over the last few decades and still relies
> heavily on Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores in most U.S.
> universities. It has been long debated whether the GRE is an
> appropriate selection tool and whether overreliance on GRE scores may
> compromise admission of students historically underrepresented in
> STEM. Despite many concerns about the test, there are few studies
> examining the efficacy of the GRE in predicting PhD completion and
> even fewer examining this question in STEM fields. For the present
> study, we took advantage of a long-lived collaboration among
> institutions in the Northeast Alliance for Graduate Education and the
> Professoriate (NEAGEP) to gather comparable data on GRE scores and
> PhD completion for 1805 U.S./Permanent Resident STEM doctoral
> students in four state flagship institutions. We found that GRE
> Verbal (GRE V) and GRE Quantitative (GRE Q) scores were similar for
> women who completed STEM PhD degrees and those who left programs.
> Remarkably, GRE scores were significantly higher for men who left
> than counterparts who completed STEM PhD degrees. In fact, men in the
> lower quartiles of GRE V or Q scores finished degrees more often than
> those in the highest quartile. This pattern held for each of the four
> institutions in the study and for the cohort of male engineering
> students across institutions. GRE scores also failed to predict time
> to degree or to identify students who would leave during the first
> year of their programs. Our results suggests that GRE scores are not
> an effective tool for identifying students who will be successful in
> completing STEM doctoral programs. Considering the high cost of
> attrition from PhD programs and its impact on future leadership for
> the U.S. STEM workforce, we suggest that it is time to develop more
> effective and inclusive admissions strategies.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0206570

==========

As always, it's good practice to pull the string to see who's been
citing that work in the year and a half since it came out:
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=735740744778503622

That leads to things like this:
  https://beyondthegre.org/response-to-ets/

I personally have been very skeptical of GRE scores since forever.
Even so, I know they sing a very seductive siren song.  At some
emotional level the temptation is to assume they mean "something"
even though logic and long experience tell me they are not a
good measure of anything I care about.