Graduate Admissions for a More
Diverse Student Body
Fall 2011
Joseph L. Brown, PhD
Stanford University
School of Humanities & Sciences
Acceptable Practices for Graduate
Admissions

Consider all applicants in the same admissions pool

Do an “individualized, holistic review” of each file to
identify candidates qualified for admission

Once a pool of qualified candidates is identified, then
select admits from that pool based on each
applicant’s contributions to the educational
environment

Diversity, broadly defined, can be considered, along
with other criteria at each step of the process
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What is diversity?

Includes culture, socioeconomic status, race,
gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, work
and life experiences, skills, and interests

The School particularly encourages departments and
programs to seek applications from and to recruit
–
–
–
–

Underrepresented minorities (URM): African Americans,
Hispanic/Latino Americans and Native Americans
Women in the sciences
Low-socioeconomic backgrounds
First generation college students
A diverse student body will enhance the breadth,
depth, and quality of our educational environment.
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ETS Guidelines for Using GRE Scores

Use multiple criteria
–
letters of recommendation, courses taken and their rigor,
GPA, essays, GRE General and Subject Test scores

Consider Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytical Writing
scores as separate and independent measures

Avoid decisions based on small score differences

Do not use GRE cutoff scores

Question predictive utility of scores for your own
department: Conduct validity tests
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2
Revised General GRE

Began in August 2011; first score reports won’t be
available until mid-November

New verbal question types with increased focus on
reading and analyzing text
–
–

Elimination of analogies and antonyms
Touted as benefit to students with diverse backgrounds
New scoring range for verbal and quantitative sections
–
–
From 200-800 to 130-170 in 1 pt. increments
Reason? Tendency to make too much of small score
differences with 200-800 range
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Help on Interpreting Revised GRE
Scores

Handouts:
–
–
–

Tables 1A&1B, Percentile Rankings for Revised GRE Verbal,
Quantitative, and Analytical Writing sections
Table 1C, Verbal Reasoning Concordance Table
Table 1D, Quantitative Reasoning Concordance Table
For more on using Revised GRE scores, you can
download THE GRE GUIDE TO THE USE OF
SCORES from: http://www.ets.org/gre/institutions/
scores/interpret
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Estimated Counts of Scores for GRE
by Race for 2006-07
African
Mexican
Americans Americans
Native
Americans
# who took
exam in 06-07
29,432
8,447
1,978
Verbal: 600+
353
(1.2%)
346
(4.1%)
142
(7.2%)
Verbal: 700+
29
(0.1%)
25
(0.3%)
14
(0.7%)
Quant: 600+
2502
(8.5%)
1596
(18.9%)
431
(21.8%)
Quant: 700+
471
(1.6%)
439
(5.2%)
125
(6.3%)
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Causes of Group Differences in GRE
Performance

Socioeconomic Status (family income and first
generation college status)
–
–
An ETS study of high scorers (750-800) found 90% had
fathers with graduate or professional degrees.
Only 4% had fathers who had NOT completed high school
(Penncock-Roman, 1994)
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4
Causes of Group Differences in GRE
Performance

Racial and Gender Stereotypes
–
–
–
–
The threat of confirming negative stereotypes places an
additional evaluative pressure on minority test-takers and
women taking math-oriented standardized exams (Steele &
Aronson, 1995; Spencer, Steele & Quinn 1999)
Impacts strongest academic performers, not the weakest
Associated with increased load on working memory
Stereotype threat constitutes a type of measurement bias
that may complicate interpretation of GRE scores.
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Group Differences in GRE
Performance

Use the tables in Appendix to consider within-group
percentile rankings

Consider the question, “if we have an applicant with
a 650 verbal score, what is the likelihood we will see
another applicant with a 650 verbal score or
greater?”
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GRE Summary

GRE scores must be interpreted with care
–
Consider within-group percentile rankings in addition to
national percentile rankings

Understanding the limitations of the GRE tests frees
you up to focus instead on the whole application

You need not discard an applicant solely on the
basis of a relatively low test score
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The “Student in Context” Approach

Consider all aspects of the application
–

past accomplishments, letters of recommendations,
research statement, writing sample, GRE, GPA and
contributions to diversity
Consider multiple GPA measures
–
post-frosh GPA, GPA in major, GPA in courses relevant to
field of grad study
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Faculty Reviewer for Diversity

Identify a faculty member to take another look at the
diverse admissibles…

Review applications (particularly letters of
recommendation and essays) for evidence of
opportunities available and extent to which applicant
took advantage
–
–
Who are the trailblazers in the pool?
Was summer research the only opportunity available to the
student?
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Faculty Reviewer for Diversity

Look through apps for traits associated with success
that can’t be measured by the GRE
–
persistence, multitasking ability, creativity, intellectual
curiosity, potential for productivity

Report results back to full committee, make
recommendations and draw attention to promising
applications

Full committee could consider applicants who are ‘on
the bubble’
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The End
Questions? Contact
jlbrown@stanford.edu,
GRE Scores

How well do they predict performance in graduate
school?

How significant are small score differences such as
100 points?
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GRE Scores and Graduate
Performance

ETS studies find that
–
–

12-25% of variation in 1st year grad school GPA
can be explained by variation in GRE scores.
Less variation explained in time to degree, faculty
rankings of grad students or ratings of dissertation
quality
Thus 75% or more of variation in 1st year
GPA is unexplained by the General GRE
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Factors Influencing Success in
Graduate School
Reasoning Ability (General GRE)
Motivation
SUCCESS
Creativity
Interpersonal
Skills
Subject Matter Knowledge
(Subject GRE)
Financial
Support
Family Circumstances
From ETS publication “What is the Value of the Graduate Record
Examinations?” (available from www.gre.org)
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Do Small Differences on GRE Scores
Matter?

IF the general GRE explains at best 25% of variation
in first year GPA, leaving the lion’s share in variation
unexplained…particularly when it comes to other
performance measures such as time to degree or
faculty rankings…

THEN a gap of 100 GRE points between two
otherwise equally qualified candidates may not be
particularly meaningful

AND students can buy 100 points on the GRE if they
have $1500 for a good GRE prep course
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Percentile Scores for GRE Verbal Test
by Race
GRE scores
European
American
African
Americans
American
Indians
Mexican
Americans
800
99.9
99.9
99.9
99.9
750
99.4
99.9
99.8
99.9
700
97.7
99.9
99.3
99.7
650
93.5
99.7
97.4
98.8
600
84.9
98.8
92.8
95.9
550
70.5
95.3
83.2
89.1
500
52.4
87.5
68.1
76.7
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Percentile Scores for GRE Quantitative
Test by Race
GRE scores
European
American
African
Americans
American
Indians
Mexican
Americans
800
97.1
99.8
98.9
99.1
750
93.3
99.5
97.2
97.8
700
86.9
98.4
93.7
94.8
650
76.7
96.0
87.7
89.6
600
63.3
91.5
78.2
81.1
550
48.0
83.7
65.9
69.2
500
43.0
71.0
51.0
55.2
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Percentile Scores for GRE Tests by
Gender
Verbal
GRE scores
Quantitative
Men
Women
Men
Women
800
99.6
99.8
93.0
98.0
750
98.6
99.2
86.2
95.4
700
96.0
97.6
76.4
90.5
650
90.3
93.9
64.1
82.6
600
80.2
86.7
50.0
71.6
550
65.5
75.5
36.0
58.0
500
48.0
60.3
23.6
43.3
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