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Comment by AlchemistCamp | Hacker News Reader

Some people self study and pass GRE subject tests without having done the relevant undergraduate degree. Especially in fields such as mathematics and physics where testing results are easily quantified, this is a gradually growing long-term threat to the credentialing power of universities.

If an independent company comes along that can reliably get students to equivalent GRE subject test scores in a hard science most quickly than the university itself does, the result could be many of the best students stop applying. Some would just take the nontraditional route, save a fortune, ace their GREs and apply as a graduate student. Others would take their tests as evidence of their skills and and go directly into industry.

Making this move now, before such a challenger exists seems like a "good" idea from the selfish perspective of universities.

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I was rather intimidated by the GREs, but when taking the test I was shocked at how easy it was. None of it went beyond sophomore level, if even that.

I concluded that the only purpose of the GRE was to filter out the complete frauds.

I had a GRE score in the 50th percentile and was still accepted because of my research focus. My PhD was fairly successful with a track record that was better than most of my peers. So, my disdain for these general-purpose tests is quite personal.

In my opinion, the GRE mostly checks how good you are as a test taker. None of that is important to academic success. It invariably filters for a fairly streamlined and optimized class of people, who have the money and time to invest into such a test.

The fact that the ETS seems to have a clear profit motive really rubs me in the wrong way. It is a private organization attaching itself to education and siphoning the money off students by selling their tests and training materials. Universities should design their own admissions tests and not rely on such parasitic entities.

I don't agree with the idea that one can "optimize" for the GRE without knowing anything relevant to the field the GRE is in.

I did not optimize for the GRE, I did not prep for it, I did not look at a study guide for it, I simply went and took the test cold. The questions were on material one would expect to cover in basic engineering and science courses.

I don't buy the notion that anyone who does well on the GRE is doing it with tricks and fake/useless knowledge and/or cheated.

But you are kind of proving the point with your example... you are in the minority, and most people do not take it "cold". If everyone took it cold, then what you said makes more sense. But most people, unlike you, are trying to game the system for a higher score, through extensive prep work and additional test-specific training (else, why would there be so many test prep books and courses and tutors out there?). The fact that you didn't utilize those methods doesn't mean others won't.

In a sense, you're like an athlete who doesn't take steroids or doesn't push the limits of doping policy by trying to game the countermeasures, and instead of feeling aggrieved that others are achieving similar/better results as you via their just-within-the-letter-of-the-law tactics (or sometimes wildly outside the law tactics, a la Varsity Blues), instead you still feel some allegiance to an idealized view of a fair system that simply doesn't exist.

> why would there be so many test prep books and courses and tutors out there?

People are always looking for an edge, and entrepreneurs are always going to be trying to sell them one, whether it works or not. (Look at all the diet books out there, it's a billion dollar industry.)

> idealized view of a fair system that simply doesn't exist.

I'm not suggesting it is ideal or perfectly fair. I'm suggesting it isn't nearly as irrelevant as many argue.

For those who want to prep or game the system, why not do it right? Take the math classes, and actually learn math.

Which subject test was it that you took?

Engineering

What motivation does CalTech have to retain ownership of credentialing powers? I can't imagine the administration there caring about anything less.

Money? Undergraduate attendance is typically a vastly larger revenue stream.

Most of Caltech's revenue is from government and private research grants, not tuition. They only raised it because they don't have economies of scale for their undergrad program and admissions wanted to keep up with the Joneses at Stanford and Princeton,

That's news to me if true. Do you have any resources I can check out?

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