GRE Subject Tests

[HorseManiac]

You're welcome! I think you are doing a great job comparing the Big 3 for your degree plan. They each have their own pros and cons that vary by the student's needs. I'm looking forward to your decision and watching your progress.

Thanks for your encouragement NAP. I really appreciate all the help that you and everyone else on this forum has given me. This place is really great. I will definitely let you know when I have my final degree plan. Thanks again.

Horsemaniac

[mslezak]

Sure it sounds great... take 1 test and get a year of credit. But do you realize how difficult the subject GRE exams are? You are graded against a bunch of people trying to get into PhD and MS programs, and many have undergraduate degrees in the field, and usually 3.0+ GPAs. I am speaking from experience - I knew a ton of Psychology, helped a bunch of students study. I got a 37% on the Psych GRE, no credit.

I did test out of a year of school at Excelsior - I suggest to keep it simple, and take a bunch of easy DSST tests instead - check the military pass rates posted online - worked for me. A lot of the low pass rate exams have material that really isn't adequately conveyed in the study sheet.

[NAP]

Welcome to the forum, mslezak!

I'm sorry to hear that your first try on the GRE didn't work out. Will you try again in April?

I have gotten the impression that there are many good books available for preparing for the Psychology GRE, and several people on this forum have had good success with this test. One nice thing about Psychology is that there are many 3 credit exam options for the subject, which can help for most of the major. So there are multiple ways to complete this degree.

I really like being able to learn about subjects through studying for the GRE which don't have other exam options.

Each person needs to know all of the pros and cons and make the best decision for themselves regarding the GRE.

[irnbru]

Sure it sounds great... take 1 test and get a year of credit. But do you realize how difficult the subject GRE exams are? You are graded against a bunch of people trying to get into PhD and MS programs, and many have undergraduate degrees in the field, and usually 3.0+ GPAs. I am speaking from experience - I knew a ton of Psychology, helped a bunch of students study. I got a 37% on the Psych GRE, no credit.

This is very good advice. After studying for and sitting the Psyche GRE in November if I had to do it again I would have taken classes and worked through individual exams. Less people are sitting the Subject GRE tests these days as it is becoming more of an optional test for entrance to masters and phd/psyd programmes. Coupled with an economic climate which might encourage students to stay in college in order to get higher qualifications while riding out the job market, the tests are getting massively more competitive. What was an 80th percentile scaled score five or even two years ago is less than that, now.

On the plus side, thanks to the helpful information from other test takers who sat the psychology GRE (I'm looking primarily at the inspirational Alissaroot, here ) I made a scaled score of 750 which is currently at the 93rd percentile in last month's test. Additionally, for any students who enrolled with Excelsior before 1st Sept, if you sit a Subject GRE this coming April and get the required score, any additional upper level courses/exams you sit will NOT be duplicated by the GRE.

This is great news as it means a student can multiply the effect of 30 credits in psychology with a good GRE score and still get extra credit for graded classes if thereafter looking to prepare a suitable transcript for postgraduate applications.

[Kaz]

Sure it sounds great... take 1 test and get a year of credit. But do you realize how difficult the subject GRE exams are? You are graded against a bunch of people trying to get into PhD and MS programs, and many have undergraduate degrees in the field, and usually 3.0+ GPAs. I am speaking from experience - I knew a ton of Psychology, helped a bunch of students study. I got a 37% on the Psych GRE, no credit.

I did test out of a year of school at Excelsior - I suggest to keep it simple, and take a bunch of easy DSST tests instead - check the military pass rates posted online - worked for me. A lot of the low pass rate exams have material that really isn't adequately conveyed in the study sheet.

To be completely honest it's kind of a moot point now really. Excelsior was the way to go with the GRE but you need to have been enrolled since last summer in order to still use it there and this April is the very last test diet you can take and still have Excelsior accept the scores.

COSC doesn't let you finish a concentration with the GRE tests so you still need to fill out the remainder with classes and/or other tests. But for subjects like chemistry or mathematics that doesn't work well because you can't just simply pick up the last two to four upper level classes you need. Other schools aren't going to let you waive pre-reqs because you got a good GRE score and they most likely will not let you take a senior level course in chem or math, for example, if you don't even have the most basic of introductory courses completed in those subjects. So if you have to complete some of those anyway the GRE wouldn't have really done a whole lot for you, right? Maybe save you the time and money for a couple classes, but that's about it.

SUNY-Empire requires you to get a crazy score in order to clear a major, like 96+% or even better :roflol: ! Plus they have a residency requirement so you can't test out completely no matter what, you'll still have to take 32(?) credits from Empire as an Empire student. Almost nobody on this forum talks about Empire precisely because of that requirement.

And that's all of them: I haven't heard of any other schools that'll give you credit for the subject GRE. The avenue is effectively dead and I wager that after this May/June you won't see anybody posting their results or what-not here because the last Excelsior students to use it will be done and COSC students aren't too keen on it regardless.

[Kaz]

Less people are sitting the Subject GRE tests these days as it is becoming more of an optional test for entrance to masters and phd/psyd programmes.

This. They are tests to get into grad school after all. Those of us using them for credit are a paltry few and don't affect any decision making about the subject GRE one way or the other. When I lurk around forums dedicated to B&M students competing with each other to get into good grad programs the GRE scores, both general and subject, are not even close to being the most important thing that they worry about. Actually, they rank at best third and frequently lower, so I am expecting a "reboot" or refocusing of the subject GREs in the not-too-distant future. They'll probably be called the "GRE2" or some such and be massively rehauled. Either that or they'll simply be dropped, but I don't see ETS, a private for-profit company, just abandoning a long-running revenue stream without a fight.

[slimcustomer]

I really am not here for a degree, just for obtaining credits for teacher certification. GRE credits through either Charter Oak or Empire are possibly one of the greatest opportunities EVER if your state will accept them toward certification. I wouldn't dismiss how amazing this opportunity is even if Excelsior has closed this to new students.

[Kaz]

I really am not here for a degree, just for obtaining credits for teacher certification. GRE credits through either Charter Oak or Empire are possibly one of the greatest opportunities EVER if your state will accept them toward certification. I wouldn't dismiss how amazing this opportunity is even if Excelsior has closed this to new students.

You can see in my sig that I am someone who's benefited from this opportunity and I obviously understand how rare it truly is. What you are talking about is a greatly reduced population base compared to what was before. Few people tried to go the GRE route when they had more options then they do now, including the "best" option. The number attempting will only go down now, not up.

And I would encourage anyone thinking of doing what you suggest with the teacher certification to really do some leg work beforehand. There are a lot of people on this forum that are already an educator of some sort or are trying to become one. I can't recall anyone saying they knocked-out a pile of credits for their teacher certification by just taking a subject GRE and sending the scores to COSC or Empire, no muss no fuss. I'm not a teacher and not up on their certifications, but what you are suggesting just doesn't "sound right" to me.

[irnbru]

For anyone eligible to sit the GRE Subject Test in Psychology this coming April, Kaplan are repeating their ebook offer again. This book is absolutely recommended as an anchor text for preparation for the test.

Degreeforum thread with informaion here

It's a free copy, figuratively (to pun, literally) priceless

[NAP]

I wonder if it is possible to take 2 Science/Math-related GREs to complete a BS in Liberal Studies concentration at COSC.