What does it mean when they say GRE socres are biased?

Question

Yo. I was browsing the answers and some1 wrote that the GRE scores ", are biased toward the economically privileged, [...]"

Can someone please explain what that means or provide more info? Thanks.

Answer 1

That was me.

And just to clarify: I did not state that I wholeheartedly agreed with people who have asserted that the GRE is biased. I said that I understood the position of those who oppose standardized testing.

Here's an argument regarding the socioeconomic bias of the GRE, written by folks who oppose standardized testing :

"The GRE is particularly susceptible to the influence of socioeconomic class. ETS' own research has shown a strong relationship between family background and test scores. One study of applicants who scored between 750 and 800 on the exam found that only 4% of these high-scoring test-takers had fathers who had not completed high school; around half had fathers with bachelor's degrees or more, and of these, a whopping 90% had fathers with graduate or professional degrees. When family income was held constant, most of the test score differences between races disappeared or shrank dramatically."

Penncock-Roman, M. (1994). Background Characteristics and Futures Plans of High-Scoring GRE General Test Examinees, research report ETS-RR9412 submitted to EXXON Education Foundation, Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Also, keep in mind that poorer students cannot afford to take test prep courses.

For more info on why some people are opposed to the GRE and other standardized tests, see the site below, from which the above quotation was taken.

Hope that clears it up.

Answer 2

Generally, I don't see this as a true statement. The only way it could be true is if some poor students couldn't afford to go to a good college, didn't learn the proper vocabulary and math skills needed for the GRE, and thus had been disadvantaged because of their economic station in life, or if the student had lived in a poor area where the importance of math skills and having a rich vocabulary wasn't emphasized. However, it's easy enough to access materials to study for the GRE; I believe libraries have books for the vocabulary sections, and they could probably obtain resources from professors if needed. That's the only possible explanation I can think of, but it would only be applicable in extreme circumstances, as most people who are that poor can't even go to college, much less go to grad school, and most impoverished people who do go to grad school are smart enough to get many merit based scholarships in addition to need based scholarships, so they would already have the skills to succeed on the test.

Also, keep in mind that many people who write answers may not know everything, or may be expressing personal opinions rather than facts. Take everything on these forums with a grain of salt.