GRE Response: Your Grades are Just as Important!

To the Editors:

I would like to take a moment to respond to the Mark Engleson’s letter in the Nov. 22 Review, in which he states that “GREs matter more than grades for graduate school.” As a member of the admissions committee for one of the nation’s foremost graduate programs in molecular biology, I can say from experience that Mr. Engleson is way off the mark.
While I will concede that a truly remarkable GRE score (such as 95th percentile in all general and subject tests) will make an admissions committee sit up and take notice, and that a pathetic performance on the GRE (say, below the 40th percentile in all general and subject tests) presents a significant mark against an applicant, the former is rarely a guarantee of admission, and the latter is not always a kiss of death.
Your undergraduate and post-baccalaureate record has a substantial influence upon your chances for graduate admission. Not only do admissions officers consider what courses you took (intro or advanced), and your grades, they also take account of how your performance may have changed during college. For example, suppose student A did well in his first two years of college, but finished with mediocre grades in his last two years, while student B overcomes poor first/sophomore year, to finish with stellar junior/senior performance. B will be admitted and A will not, even if they have identical overall grades and GRE scores.
In addition to grades, relevant experience makes a substantial difference to your odds of admission. Graduate school takes a lot of time and energy, and an admissions committee wants to know that you are not taking the choice lightly. Do you want to do art history because it was your favorite class in college? Or have you actually worked in a museum, restored paintings, or participated in an archeological dig? Real-world experience in your chosen field can far outweigh any standardized test.
On a related point, perfect scores on the GRE cannot overcome poor letters of recommendation, and an outstanding recommendation can get a committee to reconsider a candidate with poor standardized test scores.
Mr. Engleson claims “A tenth of a point, a few tenths of a point of GPA- it won’t matter compared to a significant difference on a standardized test.” First, what is a “significant difference” between two scores? Second, a “significant difference” in standardizes test scores often doesn’t help, because an admissions officer will assume you just took a prep course. A “significant difference” between two GRE scores rarely means the same person got significantly smarter. Finally, a tenth of a point of GPA can make a difference if that’s the tenth of a point between a 2.9 and a 3.0. Unless you have the grades to match it, that perfect GRE score amounts to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
In short, many factors influence a students admission to graduate school. For those of you who think a high standardized test score is your ticket to grad school, I suggest the following: Just send your GRE scores, and nothing else. You’ll make the work of the admissions office a lot easier.

–Ary Shalizi,
OC ’ 96
Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program
Harvard Medical School