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How Students Performed on
Graduate Admissions Tests


PERCENTAGE BY WHICH THE MEAN SCORE OF TEST-TAKERS FROM SPECIFIC UNDERGRADUATE MAJORS DIFFERS FROM THE MEAN SCORE OF ALL TEST-TAKERS

*As reported in The Chronicle for Higher Education

Major LSAT GMAT GRE
verbal
GRE
Quant.
Average
Mathematics +12.8% +13.3% +2.7% +26.3% +13.8%
Philosophy +8.7% +11.0% +17.6% +4.6% +10.5%
Chemistry +7.6% +7.5% +2.1% +18.3 +8.9%
Biology +4.0% +3.3% +5.4% +8.0% +5.2%
English +5.6% +4.1% +14.5% -5.7% +4.6%
History +2.9% +4.6% +10.8% -5.5% +3.2%
Foreign Langs. +5.7% +3.3% +7.9% -4.2% +3.2%
Gen. Humanities +4.7% +1.8% +7.3% -5.0% +2.2%
Psychology +0.9% +0.8% +3.1% -4.0% +0.2%
Political Science -1.6% +.06% +3.5% -5.0% -0.8%
Arts & Music -.05% -1.2% +1.7% -8.4% -2.0%
Business Admin -4.5% -0.8% -9.1% -2.3% -4.2%
Management -5.4% -7.7% nr nr -6.6%
Speech -2.7% nr -6.0% -14.3% -7.7%
Sociology -7.0% -5.0% -5.0% -15.0% -8.0%
Education -8.7% -4.2% -10.4% -15.8% -9.8%
nr=not reported


Performance by Students Majoring in Philosophy and students majoring in other areas on LSAT, GMAT, and the GRE (Verbal and Quantitative):


A recent comprehensive study of college students' scores on major tests used for admission to graduate and professional schools shows that students majoring in Philosophy received scores substantially higher than the average on each of the tests studied. The study compared the scores of 550,000 college students who took the LSAT, GMAT, and the verbal and quantitative portions of the GRE with data collected over the previous eighteen years and was conducted by the National Institute of Education and reported in THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION.


The performance of PHILOSOPHY MAJORS
on all three tests was remarkable:


PHILOSOPHY MAJORS received higher scores on the LSAT, for instance, than students in all other humanities areas, and higher scores than all social and natural science majors except economics and mathematics, and higher scores than all applied majors.

Moreover, the differences are in most cases substantial:
PHILOSOPHY MAJORS scored 10% better than political science majors on the LSAT.

PHILOSOPHY MAJORS outperformed business majors by a margin of 15% on the GMAT and outperformed every other undergraduate major except mathematics.

PHILOSOPHY MAJORS' scores on the verbal portion of the GRE were higher than in any other major even English; and although several science majors showed higher averages in the quantitative portion of the test, PHILOSOPHY MAJORS scored substantially higher than all other humanities majors and were alone among humanities majors in scoring above the overall average.

 

 
Philosophers Excel on Standardized Tests
  
Graduate Admission Tests reported by the Chronicle for Higher Education
   
GRE Performance by Major

 

 

 

See what the Wall Street Journal had to say:

October 24, 1995

The Value of Philosophy
On just about everybody's list of hot skills are communication and analysis. So who has those skills? How about philosophy majors? Philosophy majors who took the Graduate Record Examination between 1990 and 1993 finished first among all fields in verbal skills, the American Philosophical Association notes. "This research confirms that training in critical and creative inquiry -- philosophical training -- is valuable not only for personal development but also for academic and career success," says Eric Hoffman, executive director of the Association.

 
                         
 

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