Here is a question that has kept countless aspiring graduate students awake at night: What if the test you have been dreading—the one you have been paying tutors for, the one that has you memorizing obscure vocabulary at two in the morning—turns out not to matter much at all?

For decades, the Graduate Record Examination has been the gatekeeper to advanced degrees, a nearly four-hour standardized test that purported to measure readiness for graduate study. But something remarkable has happened in the past few years. One by one, some of the most prestigious universities in the country have quietly walked away from the GRE requirement. MIT's chemistry department does not accept GRE scores at all. Stanford's Graduate School of Education has made the test entirely optional. UCLA's computer science program explicitly states that applications with GRE scores will not be given greater weight than those without. The list keeps growing.

For students—and for parents helping them navigate the bewildering landscape of graduate admissions—this shift represents both an opportunity and a source of new uncertainty. Should you still take the test? If it is optional, does submitting scores help or hurt? And what does this change mean for how applications are actually evaluated?

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The exodus from the GRE began gaining momentum around 2017, when the University of Michigan's biomedical sciences program stopped requiring scores. Other institutions followed, and the pandemic accelerated what had been a gradual shift. By 2025, the landscape looks dramatically different from even a few years ago. Harvard does not require the GRE for many of its graduate programs. Columbia, Cornell, and Penn have made it optional across numerous departments. Princeton's departments in comparative literature, molecular biology, neuroscience, psychology, and computer science no longer require it. At Yale, the test is either waived or optional for programs ranging from African American Studies to electrical engineering.

Stanford's Aeronautics and Astronautics department now states plainly on its website: GRE scores are no longer required for admission, and will not be considered on the application. MIT's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program is even more direct: We do not use GRE test scores during the admission process—regardless of citizenship.

What drove this change? The answer involves a growing body of research that questioned whether the test actually predicts what it claims to predict. A 2017 study at the University of North Carolina found that for 280 graduate students in their biomedical program, GRE scores were not correlated with the number of first-author papers students published or how long it took them to complete their degrees. A companion study at Vanderbilt examining 495 biomedical PhD students found that while higher GRE scores predicted better first-semester grades, they did not predict which students would pass their qualifying exams, graduate, publish papers, or receive fellowships.

A more recent meta-analysis published in the Journal of Higher Education in 2023 was particularly striking. Looking across multiple studies, the researchers found that GRE scores explained only 0.16 percent of the variance in degree completion and 0.64 percent of the variance in progress toward degree—numbers so small as to be essentially meaningless for prediction purposes. The study's authors wrote that these near-zero relationships highlight the test's lack of suitability for its stated purpose of helping admissions committees identify applicants likely to succeed.

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The landscape varies considerably by field, and this is where the picture becomes more complicated for applicants trying to plan their strategy. The life sciences have led what some call the GRExit movement—by 2019, more than half of molecular biology programs at top universities had dropped the requirement. Neuroscience and ecology programs followed. But as of recent surveys, more than ninety percent of chemistry, physics, geology, and psychology PhD programs at major research universities still required GRE scores.

Some programs occupy a middle ground. Many business schools accept either the GRE or the GMAT, with most stating they have no preference between the two. Stanford's Graduate School of Business requires one or the other, and publishes average admitted scores for both. Law schools, which historically required only the LSAT, have increasingly accepted GRE scores as well—Harvard Law and Columbia Law among them.

For specific top-tier programs, the requirements can be surprisingly idiosyncratic. At Stanford, the Statistics department still requires the GRE General Test, though the Math Subject Test is optional but recommended. Yet Stanford's Education school has made everything optional. At MIT, the Mechanical Engineering department requires applicants to self-report GRE scores, while the Chemistry department explicitly states it does not accept them. This variation means that students applying to multiple programs may find themselves needing scores for some applications but not others.

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For students who qualify, universities offer various paths to waive the requirement even at programs that typically want scores. The most common conditions involve professional experience, previous graduate degrees, or strong academic records. Harvard Kennedy School, for instance, allows applicants to waive the GRE or GMAT if they have completed statistics and intermediate economics courses with grades of B-plus or better. The University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy grants waivers to applicants with five or more years of relevant professional experience.

At Auburn University, students with undergraduate GPAs of 3.25 or higher may qualify for waivers in participating programs. The Illinois Institute of Technology allows students with a minimum GPA of 3.0 to apply for professional master's programs without GRE scores. American University waives the requirement for several programs—including the Master of Public Policy—for applicants with five or more years of full-time relevant work experience.

These waiver conditions reflect a broader recognition that standardized test scores are just one of many possible indicators of readiness for graduate work. A seasoned professional who has spent years in policy work may demonstrate analytical capability through their career record rather than through a multiple-choice examination.

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But here is the question that genuinely puzzles many applicants: if a program says the GRE is optional, should you submit scores anyway?

The honest answer is that it depends on your scores and the rest of your application. When universities adopt test-optional policies, they generally commit to not evaluating applicants negatively for not submitting scores. But admissions is ultimately a comparative process, and here the dynamics become subtle.

Julie Posselt, a higher education researcher at the University of Southern California who has extensively studied the use of the GRE in admissions, has raised concerns about optional policies. She notes that applicants who submit GRE scores will, on average, have higher scores than the general applicant pool—after all, people with lower scores are more likely to withhold them. This might skew the way that faculty look at people who do not submit scores, she suggests. Her recommendation for programs is unambiguous: either look at scores or do not look at scores.

For applicants, the calculus is different. The prevailing wisdom among admissions consultants is straightforward: strong scores can help, particularly if other parts of your application have weaknesses. A high GRE score might partially compensate for a lower undergraduate GPA, for instance. But submitting mediocre or low scores when you have the option not to is almost certainly a mistake. Reviewers who see test scores develop expectations, and scores that fall below those expectations may raise questions—even unconsciously—about an applicant's judgment.

The threshold for what counts as strong varies by field and institution. For highly competitive programs in engineering or computer science, some advisors suggest submitting scores only if they exceed 320 combined, with quantitative scores at 165 or above. For mid-ranked programs, scores in the 310 to 320 range may be worth including. But these are rough guidelines at best. The research on GRE validity is muddled enough that reasonable people disagree about whether any score cutoff makes sense.

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What matters more, then, if not the GRE? The programs that have dropped the requirement have generally shifted emphasis toward what they describe as holistic review. This typically means greater weight on undergraduate transcripts and GPA, letters of recommendation from faculty who know the applicant's work well, statements of purpose that articulate clear research interests and goals, and demonstrated research or professional experience.

For PhD programs in particular, research experience has become increasingly central. One study at UC San Francisco found that even an applicant's undergraduate institution—a factor many faculty assume predicts success—washed out as a predictor of graduate school performance. What mattered more was whether students had substantive exposure to research environments and whether they could articulate genuine intellectual curiosity about specific problems.

This shift creates both opportunities and challenges. Students from well-resourced undergraduate institutions often have more access to research opportunities, faculty mentorship, and polished recommendation letters. The hope among advocates of test-optional policies is that removing the GRE barrier will diversify applicant pools by eliminating a test that disproportionately disadvantages women, people of color, and students from low-income backgrounds. Educational Testing Service data show persistent score gaps along these demographic lines. Whether dropping the requirement actually increases diversity remains an open question that researchers are actively studying.

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For students and families navigating this landscape, several practical realities emerge. First, requirements vary not just by university but by program and even by year—what was required last cycle may not be required this cycle, and vice versa. The only reliable source is the current admissions page for each specific program you are considering. Second, even if a program does not require the GRE, you need to ensure the rest of your application is exceptionally strong. The absence of test scores means every other element carries more weight.

Third, if you are applying to a mix of programs with different requirements, you may need to take the test anyway for some applications. In that case, the question becomes whether to also submit those scores to programs where they are optional. Return to the earlier guidance: if your scores are strong, they can only help. If they are not, exercise the option not to submit.

Finally, recognize that this moment of transition creates genuine uncertainty—not just for applicants, but for admissions committees themselves. Faculty members are learning to evaluate applications without a familiar data point. Some welcome this change; others remain skeptical. The research will continue to evolve, and institutional policies will likely continue to shift.

What remains constant is that graduate admissions, like most important decisions, involves judgment under uncertainty. No single test score or transcript or letter can fully capture a person's potential for original research, for intellectual growth, for contribution to a field. Perhaps the most valuable thing about the GRE-optional movement is not that it eliminates a particular test, but that it invites everyone—applicants and institutions alike—to think more carefully about what we actually mean when we ask whether someone is ready for graduate school, and how we might ever really know.

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