Your Voice | Letters

Defending the GRE

To the Editor:

Christina Domenico's column last Wednesday was sadly misinformed about the Graduate Record Examination.

Many have claimed throughout the years that GRE is useless for predicting college success or that you can't boil down someone's ability to a number. Nevertheless, dozens of studies have examined the validity of the GRE for predicting graduate-school success and found significant correlations with graduate-school grades, comprehensive examination scores, publication citation counts and faculty ratings.

Despite claims of bias, there is a mountain of evidence that the GRE is a useful predictor of graduate school success, even when college grades are taken into consideration.

While it is true that, as Ms. Domenico says, the GRE should not be the only measure used to evaluate potential students, not even GRE proponents would argue that it should be. The research on this issue is clear: Schools choosing not to use the GRE for graduate admissions lose important information that could help them choose the best candidates for future graduate-school success.

As with the SAT and other entrance examinations, the GRE is a reliable and valid assessment that adds critical information to help make admissions decisions in a fair and unbiased way.

Morgan Polikoff The author is Ph.D. student in the School of Education Diversity at Penn

To the Editor:

Kudos to Executive Editor David Lei on his column last week ("Diversity and the DP" 9/30/08).

The Daily Pennsylvanian is doing a great job of promoting better representation of undergraduate minorities in major campus institutions by increasing awareness.

As president of the Penn Alumni Student Society (PASS) and the Undergraduate Student Representative to the Penn Alumni Board of Directors, I would like to echo David's call to action "to reflect the character and makeup of Penn's student body as best as possible."

PASS seeks to foster bonds across generations of Quakers and promote school spirit through events and partnerships with undergraduate umbrella organizations, student government and cultural resource centers, as well as admissions and regional alumni clubs.

To this end, we share with the DP a vision of Penn which is led by Movers and Quakers who embody our community's rich and multi-faceted social fabric.

PASS is actively reaching out to students to continue serving as a source of support both financially and otherwise for meaningful interaction involving alumni and students, while promoting inclusiveness and diversity.

We look forward to acting as the social glue that unites us all through our school spirit and Penn connections!

Any student group interested in becoming involved with PASS or to discuss opportunities for collaboration and sponsorship is welcome to contact us at pass@dev.upenn.edu and to visit us on Facebook and at www.alumni.upenn.edu/pass.

Keep an eye out for us on the Green at Homecoming!

Jing Jin The author is a College senior

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