Entrance Exams
You took the SAT or ACT for entrance into college. If you want to go to graduate school, you may need to take another entrance exam. Graduate school entrance tests are field-specific: The GMAT is for business school, the LSAT for law school, the MCAT for medical school. Dental schools, optometry schools and some other schools also have specialized exams. The Graduate Record Exam (GRE) is the most common entrance exam for most other fields. The GRE General Test is, essentially, the SAT for grad school - it measures your scholastic ability rather than narrowing the focus down to a specific area of study. The GRE does, however, also offer 8 specialty field tests -- including one for psychology!
What is the GRE? Who has to take it? How important is the score? Not all graduate schools will require you to take the GRE. You should make your decisions about your career and degree goals, and start searching for grad schools you might want to attend to determine whether you will need to take an entrance exam.
- What is the GRE? from Dr. Margaret Lloyd's Careers In Psychology Page.
- Demystifying the GRE Psychology Test: A Brief Guide for Students
- The GRE General Test include sections on analytical writing, verbal ability and quantitative ability.
- The GRE Psychology Subject Test includes questions about psychology that are experimental or natural science oriented; social or social science oriented and general.
When should you take the exams? In many cases, you can wait until as late as the first semester of your Senior year to take the exam. If you wait until then, and you don’t like your score, you may not have an opportunity to retake the exam. Many advisors, therefore, recommend that you take one of the exams (General or Subject) during the second semester of your Junior year or during the summer between your Junior and Senior years and then take the other exam during the first semester of your Senior year. Keep in mind that the subject tests are offered only in October, November, and April.
What do you have to do to take the exams? The Graduate Record Exam website provides specific information you will need. You must register and take the test at a test center. The Indiana University testing center is in Franklin Hall, Room M005. Call 856-0684 to ask questions or to schedule a testing appointment.
Resources for GRE Test Preparation. To do your best on these exams, you must prepare for them.
- You can access test prep books in the Psychology & Neuroscience Advising Library or in the Career Reference Collection in the Wells Library (Call Number Range: LB2366-LB2367).
- The IU School of Continuing Studies offers a GRE prep course on the Bloomington campus. The course is not for academic credit and costs $295 (not including books). For those of you who know how expensive the Kaplan course is, $295 should sound like a bargain. Dates of upcoming courses and online enrollment are available if you click here.
- The Learning Express Library is a comprehensive, interactive online learning platform of practice tests and tutorial course series designed to help you succeed on academic and licensing tests free to all Indiana University students. You'll get immediate scoring, complete answer explanations, and an individualized analysis of your results. Click on the link above, log in with your IU username and password, and then click on the category "Graduate School Entrance Exams" on the right side of the page. Create an account to save examinations/courses and complete them at a later time.
- GRE offers free Test Preparation Materials. You can download practice tests and use POWERPREP software online. POWERPREP includes: complete practice tests, practice questions with explanations, advice about how to write effective essays, easy-to-use tutorials to familiarize you with taking the GRE on computer, and charts and reports that show how your score compares to those of other GRE test takers. Don't miss Test Taking Strategies for the General Test.
- The Kaplan Online Prep for the GRE includes prep materials for both general and subject tests. See GRE Psychology at a Glance.
- The Princeton Review GRE Online Courses let you prepare on your own schedule, at your own pace. They offer four options: GRE Private Online Tutoring, GRE LiveOnline, GRE Online, and GRE ExpressOnline.
