Graduate school entrance exams can be intimidating; however, they do not need to be if one studies. With a combination of preparation months prior to the scheduled testing day and learning in advance what the testing conditions will be, future test-takers are more likely to have a good helping of confidence and success.
  The Lion’s Roar / Fernanda Chagas

Despite all the excitement, senior year of college can be a terrifying thing, especially when one plans to proceed to the next step by going to graduate school. This usually involves taking tests to get into one’s graduate program of choice.

There are a multitude of standardized tests for getting into graduate school: the GRE, GMAT, LSAT and MCAT being the major ones.

The GRE test is intended for those wanting to go on to either graduate or business school, usually those involved in psychology, communication or the humanities. It includes high school level math, English skills such as vocabulary and reading comprehension and essay writing.

For those going to graduate school to pursue English, all that is needed from the GRE is a minimum score of 150 on the verbal section.

Though the essay section seems intimidating, not many schools take a look at the actual content produced by the student.

“I haven’t encountered a lot of schools that scrutinize the writing portion of the GRE,” said Ziba Rashidian, graduate coordinator for the English program. “If they want to see how a student writes, most schools request a statement of purpose and a writing sample.”

The GMAT test is for those pursuing careers in business. The test prides itself on fairness to all test-takers. Over 6,000 business programs around the world utilize it.

At Southeastern, the minimum score for entrance into the graduate program is 450.

“A student should start taking the GMAT as soon as they see necessary,” said Dustin St. Pierre, graduate assistant at the Department of Graduate Business Programs. “The sooner the better is the mindset that should be taken.  The reason behind this is to allow new entrants to take the test as many times as necessary to pass with our minimum required score of a 450.”

The GMAT website offers free test prep software to aid future test-takers. It advises a student that “understanding the format, practicing sample questions and reviewing one section at a time” is the key to success with the test.

The LSAT test is intended for potential law school pupils. Unlike the aforementioned exams, the LSAT is only offered four times per year in designated centers all over the globe.

According to the LSAT website, “Many law schools require that the LSAT be taken by December for admission the following fall. However, taking the test earlier—in June or September—is often advised.”

The test is split into five sections, all of which feature multiple-choice questions. There is an ungraded writing section at the end; however, the writing sample is sent to law schools with the test-taker’s score.

Unlike the GRE, this test is not a perfect predictor of graduate school success. According to the test’s official website, “The predictive power of an admission test is limited by many factors, such as the complexity of the skills the test is designed to measure and the unmeasurable factors that can affect students’ performances, such as motivation, physical and mental health or work and family responsibilities. In spite of these factors, the LSAT compares favorably with admission tests used in other graduate and professional fields of study.”

The MCAT exam is intended for those seeking to enter the medical world. It tests users on “problem solving, critical thinking and knowledge of science concepts and principles prerequisite to the study of medicine,” according to the MCAT website.

“Normally students apply to medical school at the end of their junior year,” said Volker Stiller, associate professor of biological sciences. “These students usually take their MCAT that summer. By this point, most students have not yet scheduled their second organic or their second physics lab lecture. We always tell them to take your chemistry as soon as possible.”

According to Stiller, the test will be undergoing some changes in the near future.

“Beginning 2015, the new version will be administered, and there are additional topics on there: sociology and a bit of psychology,” said Stiller. “People are now looking for more well-rounded people who are going into medicine. The test used to be four to five hours, but the new one will take seven hours.”

Like the LSAT, the MCAT is not a good predictor of how well one will do in graduate/medical school. Instead, it predicts how well one does on the board exams which come after a student is finished with medical school, according to Stiller.

All across the board, studying for these standardized tests should begin a few months prior to the scheduled day of testing. This gives a test-taker time to determine their individual academic strengths and weaknesses.

Students should also be prepared to, as Stiller puts it, “be treated like a criminal” upon entering the test-taking area.

“You get I.D.’d, you get fingerprinted, you get wanded down so you don’t carry anything into the room,” said Stiller. “That really throws students off. They lose their nerve a little bit and don’t do as well.”

In the end, students will all have different needs for their studying and test-taking processes. They should plan accordingly.

“The timing for taking [these exams] really depends on the student’s usual performance on standardized exams,” said Rashidian. “If a person tends to be a little nervous or not do well on standardized exams, I suggest trying to take it with enough lead time so it can be taken a second time before the scores have to be submitted to the schools to which the student is applying.”

For more information on Southeastern’s available graduate programs, check out southeastern.edu/acad_research/programs/grad_school. Preparation advice and software can usually be found on the official websites of the aforementioned exams.