What are GREs for?
When you’re a student you always have to take standardized tests. They all lead up to the ultimate: the SAT. But what beyond that? Are you really done with all your burdens of standardized tests or is there an even more important one waiting? You guessed it: you’re not done and the granddaddy of them all is waiting for unsuspecting college students who want to go to graduate school.
The standardized test you most often hear about whether it is from movies or TV or just popular culture in general is the MCATs. However, this is only for students who want to attend medical school and become some sort of doctor. This doesn’t even apply to all the students who are in science related fields. This is where the GREs come in.
The Graduate Record Examination is used to measure the aptitude of students who are graduating college to go into many general fields of graduate school. While tests like the MCATs exist for students looking into more specialized fields, the GREs provide one standard test for students trying to get into graduate school in fields ranging from medical research to teaching to politics. Many of the students applying to fields like these came from a liberal arts background and only have a general education background so one overall general test may be the best option.
The GRE essentially operates as the SAT of college students. To go on to the next level, you have to take this for most schools and programs. While there are always exceptions like when a professor can fast track you into a program, most of the time the test is necessary to determine what your grades from your college are worth and what you learned.
Many schools will always just have easier classes than others. It’s up to tests like the GRE to separate students from many different backgrounds to determine who is really the best and brightest. Whether they are from small state school or a giant private institution or anything in between, there really isn’t anything stopping the GRE from taking apart every student and making them all on equal footing for at least a day.
