The University of Chicago is no longer requiring graduate school applicants to submit Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores, the Nature Jobs blog reports.
It adds that this decision comes after a campaign by graduate students in the biological sciences who argued that standardized test scores don't measure students' ability to do well in a graduate program. In addition, the Graduate Recruitment Initiative Team (GRIT) team noted that the tested is biased against women, minorities, and individuals from underprivileged backgrounds.
"Our goal is to ensure that prospective students have the resilience and perseverance factor that's really needed to survive in graduate school," Cody Hernandez, a co-founder of GRIT and third-year PhD student, tells Nature Jobs.
The organization also recruits applicants to the school's PhD programs, and Vicky Prince, a dean of graduate affairs for the biosciences, tells Nature Jobs that the students recruited by GRIT are quite successful, even if their academic records were not as strong as others'.
In June, the University of Chicago also eliminated the SAT or ACT requirement for undergraduate applicants, it adds, noting that the school is now is the first to have no standardized test score requirements for undergraduate or graduate applicants.