Graduate Record Exam (GRE)

Graduate Record Exam (GRE), standardized test required by most institutions of higher education in the United States for admission into postgraduate degree programs. The 3.5-hour, multiple-choice exam tests verbal, quantitative, and analytical abilities. Nearly 500,000 students take the test each year.

The GRE was created by The Cooperative Graduate Testing Program, a division of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The test was originally designed to evaluate students already enrolled in graduate degree programs on their knowledge of liberal arts—including literature, social science, language, music, art, and history—as well as a field of specialization. First administered in 1937 to first-year graduate students at Columbia University, Yale University, Harvard University, and Princeton University, the GRE was one of the earliest attempts to conduct a large-scale, multiple-choice examination at the graduate level.

Although the GRE was initially developed to assess student progress, in 1942 the Carnegie Foundation concluded that GRE scores provided an unbiased measurement of the qualifications of students applying to graduate school. By 1945, graduate schools throughout the United States had replaced their various traditional entrance exams with the standardized GRE. In 1945 the Carnegie Foundation established the GRE Program to coordinate testing and help schools evaluate applicants.

In 1947 the Carnegie Foundation, in cooperation with the College Board and the American Council on Education, created the Educational Testing Service (ETS). In 1948 ETS took over publishing and test administration operations, while the GRE Program remained in charge of test content development. In 1966 the Association of Graduate Schools (AGS)—a division of the Association of American Universities—and the Council of Graduate Schools established the GRE Board in cooperation with ETS to monitor GRE Program activities.

In 1992 ETS introduced a computerized version of the GRE called GRE Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT). CAT assists in quicker evaluation and distribution of student scores and gives students the option of taking the test via computer rather than with traditional paper and pencil. In 1994 Kaplan Educational Centers, a private company that coaches students for the GRE, criticized the GRE CAT test for recycling questions and using only a few versions of the exam, making cheating easier. By the end of that year ETS had increased the GRE question pool and established time limits on how long certain questions could be used on the test.

In addition to the general test of verbal, quantitative, and analytical abilities, the GRE Program offers several subject tests designed to assess students’ abilities in specialized fields of study. The ETS administers subject tests in biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, biology, chemistry, computer science, economics, education, engineering, geology, history, English literature, mathematics, music, physics, political science, psychology, and sociology.