Students planning to enroll in programs in 14 different departments at Princeton University would no longer be required to submit Graduate Records Examination (GRE).
On Tuesday, the university announced making GRE test-optional for graduate admission from next academic year to attract a diverse student body saying that test was not the best predictor of academic ability or success.
Princeton took the decision to make college accessible for all the students especially those from minorities, low-income families and first-generation students.
“We believe that demographic and intellectual diversity drives innovative research and discovery, it expands our capacity for teaching and learning, and it equips us for lives of leadership in an increasingly pluralistic society,” Renita Miller, associate dean for access, diversity, and inclusion for the Graduate School said.
“To achieve our academic mission requires Princeton to identify, attract and develop the most promising individuals from as many segments of society as possible.”
A recent report by Georgetown University researchers found that most selective colleges in the U.S. would have significantly less diverse student bodies if they adopted a standardized test only admission policy.
The report also found that test-only admissions would set 1250 as the minimum SAT score for admission at the country’s top 200 colleges, and would raise the median SAT score from 1250 to 1320, resulting in a decrease in the enrollment of black and Latino students.
Miller further said that the move would ensure diverse faculty in future after students who earn Ph.D.s become professors at higher education institutions.
The 14 departments that have made GRE optional are Art and Archaeology, Classics Comparative Literature, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, English, French and Italian, Geosciences, Molecular Biology, Music Composition, Neuroscience, Psychology, Religion, Slavic Languages, and Literature, Spanish and Portuguese.
Test Only Admissions Policies Would Make Colleges Less Diverse
