Getting into engineering school for petroleum engineering – one of the highest-paying master’s degrees – is a process. Prospective students have to submit a comprehensive admissions package that, at least until the COVID-19 pandemic struck, included GRE scores. The pandemic has pressed graduate schools and standardized test publishers to make changes to the longstanding graduate admissions exam requirements and formats.
The GRE and Engineering School Admissions
Before 2020, it was common for engineering schools to require applicants for master’s in petroleum engineering programs to include graduate entrance exam scores in their applications. The Graduate Record Exam (GRE) General Test has historically been the standardized test of choice for engineering programs, including programs in petroleum engineering, as well as graduate programs outside of engineering.
The GRE test is the most widely accepted graduate admissions exam worldwide, according to its publisher, Educational Testing Service (ETS). During the 2018 through 2019 testing period, 532,826 people took the GRE General Test, according to the ETS. That’s more than double the number of people (242,714) who took the GMAT, the next most widely known graduate admissions exam, in 2018. The GRE General Test is a separate exam from the GRE Subject Tests, which are available in the subjects of chemistry, biology, physics, psychology, mathematics and English literature. Although math and all of the natural sciences have a place in petroleum engineering, programs usually only ask that applicants take the GRE General Test, not any of the GRE Subject Tests.
In the pre-pandemic days, the GRE was so entrenched in the graduate school admissions process that many engineering schools encouraged prospective students to apply to a master’s in petroleum engineering program only if they had achieved a minimum recommended score. This score might be specific to the quantitative reasoning section of the test, the verbal reasoning section, these sections combined or the cumulative score on the entire test, including the analytical writing component. Students who did not meet this minimum score would be unlikely to get into the program, and some schools would give notice that an application that doesn’t meet the minimum GRE requirement would not be considered, period.
The Pandemic’s Effects on Graduate Admissions Exams
The GRE, which is delivered by computer, used to be taken at designated testing centers. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced testing centers to close, it left students – and engineering schools – in a difficult situation. Students who had intended to take the GRE General Test in preparation for their application to graduate school were suddenly unable to do so.
Different graduate schools and academic programs chose to respond to this unprecedented event in different ways – in some instances, even within the same university. Some schools put in place a temporary waiver of this longstanding admissions requirement, with the intention to revert to their original admissions requirements as soon as possible. Other academic institutions have contemplated doing away with the GRE requirement entirely, a change that some academic and educational professionals have encouraged, according to Inside Higher Ed. Some programs continued to require GRE scores, and by March 27, 2020, ETS had begun offering an option to take the GRE at home, according to Poets & Quants. Taking the GRE at home requires you to meet specific equipment and environment requirements, including the use of a microphone and speaker to communicate with the proctor and the use of a webcam that displays a view of the entire room to the proctor.
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While the option to take the GRE at home may have been born of necessity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the new home-administered format is a permanent offering that test-takers can continue to choose even as testing centers reopen, according to the ETS.
The Future of GRE Scores in Petroleum Engineering Graduate Programs
Many programs are no longer using the GRE in their admissions requirements, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This trend has resulted from a combination of the changes to admissions requirements brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and from concerns over whether the test is fair to students from different backgrounds. Admissions teams that have become used to evaluating the strength of prospective students’ applications without having GRE scores to consider may have determined that they don’t need this added factor to identify strong candidates.
The pandemic has been a contributing factor. However, the decline in the GRE’s inclusion in admissions requirements was already so noticeable by May 2019 – months before the pandemic began – that the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported on the “wave of graduate programs” that were discontinuing their use of the test. Still, programs that require a great deal of technical knowledge, like engineering, may be slower to consider doing away with the GRE permanently.
Since many engineering schools still require the GRE, you should expect to take this exam. Before you begin your exam preparations in earnest, find out if your desired program still requires GRE scores or if it has followed the trend of dropping this requirement.
Additional Resources
How Long Does It Typically Take to Get a Master’s in Petroleum Engineering?
What Classes Will I Have to Take for a Degree in Petroleum Engineering?