I am a current PhD student and I will admit that my GRE score was pretty mediocre. I've never been good at taking standardized tests (I didn't do very well on the SAT either). I love math, but English is not my native language, so I've always struggled with the verbal sections of the test.
I personally don't think that these standardized tests are a good way of evaluating the student's academic potential or his/her potential to conduct research. Despite my low scores on the SAT and the GRE, I graduated with a 4.0 GPA from both high school and college. I had extensive research experience as an undergrad and was even able to publish a paper on the research I conducted with my undergraduate mentor. Over the past fee years of my graduate career I have had a number of my research proposals funded, I've won a couple of poster competitions, I was awarded the NSF-GRFP fellowship, and have manuscripts currently in review. I intend on submitting (and hopefully publishing) my thesis before graduating. I feel very lucky that my advisor overlooked my low scores and still accepted me into her lab. Without that opportunity, I would not have been able to pursue my passion in research! Asya Robertshaw Doctoral Candidate Purdue University Dept of Botany & Plant Pathology 915 W State St West Lafayette, IN 7907 On Sep 2, 2014 7:37 PM, "Alex M. L" <[email protected]> wrote: > Last weekend I got into a long discussion on the value of GRE score in a > PhD > student. As the 2015 applicants start, I open up the discussion to the > community: > > I have a female student that has both a Masters (thesis) and publication > with > several years research experience. However, her GRE score are quite poor. > Should I really pass up a seemingly great applicant because of low scores? > > If a student has a biology Masters or a publication... do GRE scores > matter? > Have we not moved past GRE scores when picking the next round of PhD > researchers for our lab(s)? > > If you have a personal story of low scores and still attaining your PhD or > accepting a similar student... I would love to hear from you! > > Cheers! > Alex M.L >
