Deans' Office, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, TX 77030.
Graduate College, Rush University, Chicago, IL 60612.
CBE Life Sci Educ. 2019 Mar;18(1):ar7. doi: 10.1187/cbe.18-06-0103.
Graduate schools around the United States are working to improve access to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in a manner that reflects local and national demographics. The admissions process has been the focus of examination, as it is a potential bottleneck for entry into STEM. Standardized tests are widely used as part of the decision-making process; thus, we examined the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) in two models of applicant review: metrics-based applicant review and holistic applicant review to understand whether it affected applicant demographics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. We measured the relationship between GRE scores of doctoral applicants and admissions committee scores. Metrics-based review of applicants excluded twice the number of applicants who identified as a historically underrepresented minority compared with their peers. Efforts to implement holistic applicant review resulted in an unexpected result: the GRE could be used as a tool in a manner that did not reflect its reported bias. Applicant assessments in our holistic review process were independent of gender, racial, and citizenship status. Importantly, our recommendations provide a blueprint for institutions that want to implement a data-driven approach to assess applicants in a manner that uses the GRE as part of the review process.
美国各地的研究生院正在努力以反映当地和全国人口统计数据的方式提高对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的接受程度。招生过程一直是审查的重点，因为它是进入 STEM 的潜在瓶颈。标准化考试被广泛用作决策过程的一部分；因此，我们在两种申请人审查模式下检查了研究生记录考试（GRE）：基于指标的申请人审查和整体申请人审查，以了解它是否影响了德克萨斯大学 MD 安德森癌症中心 UTHealth 生物医学科学研究生院的申请人群体。我们衡量了博士生申请人的 GRE 分数与招生委员会分数之间的关系。基于指标的申请人审查排除了两倍的申请人，这些申请人认为自己是历史上代表性不足的少数族裔，而他们的同龄人则没有。实施整体申请人审查的努力产生了一个意想不到的结果：GRE 可以作为一种工具，而不会反映其报告的偏见。我们的整体审查过程中的申请人评估与性别、种族和公民身份无关。重要的是，我们的建议为希望实施数据驱动的方法来评估申请人的机构提供了蓝图，该方法将 GRE 用作审查过程的一部分。
