Two U-M schools eliminated the GRE from their application process to address testing equity disparities—increasingly noted in research literature and in evaluation of admissions decisions—with positive results.

Beginning in Fall 2019, with strong faculty support, SEAS removed the GRE requirement for its master’s program. Following a close examination of student academic achievement patterns, the school had determined that there was no correlation between GRE scores and academic success. In removing the GRE requirement and waiving application fees, SEAS took a substantial step in expanding access and addressing equity disparities.

Also this past year, UMSI faculty voted to pilot removal of the GRE from PhD admissions consideration. A previous decision to remove the GRE from consideration in master’s admissions had resulted in an immediate increase in applications from underrepresented minority (URM)* students. In the 2019–2020 academic year, the number of URM PhD applicants more than doubled from the prior year (from 9 to 19 applicants). This is the largest number of PhD applicants from underrepresented groups in the last 11 years. The percent of URM-admitted PhD students also more than doubled from the previous year, from 5 percent in 2019 to 12 percent in 2020.

*URM (Underrepresented Minority) is a term used in college admissions. At the University of Michigan, URM refers to Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino/Latinx and Native American students