Earlier this year, the University of Michigan became the first US university to remove the requirement that applicants to its nonprofessional doctoral programs take a standardized test—the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). This decision will not, on its own, address inequities in admissions practice, nor the broader education barriers that many applicants face. But it is a major step toward an admissions process that considers all dimensions of a candidate’s preparation and promise—a holistic view that should be adopted by all universities if equity in education and opportunities is to be achieved. ...This is the dumbing down of science grad schools. The purpose is to admit incompetent women and BIPOCs. There is no example of a talented applicant being lost. The talented ones are able to score well on the tests.What are the costs for admissions committees that use the GRE in admissions decisions? In short, the loss of talented applicants at every stage of the process.
Test scores are the main way that talented students get into good schools, when they have deficiencies in their records. Ignoring the scores serves no purpose, example to enable sex and race discrimination. It is amazing to see America's leading science journal going along with this nonsense.
This will not last long. As soon as it becomes clear that what these schools produce is not even remotely capable, standards of some merit will reappear. Incompetence is not sexy in the sciences for very long. I'm doubtful engineers can say, 'hey, my bridge may have fallen down, but I'm a dual souled asexual person of color who suffers from neurosis.' and keep their job.
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