Validity of Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test Scores for Admissions to Colleges of Veterinary Medicine

From the standpoint of test validation, veterinary medicine provides both a unique context in which to study the validity of Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) test scores and a singular opportunity to address the shortcomings typical of many GRE validity studies. This article documents a study of the validity of the GRE General Test for predicting 1st-year grade averages in a comprehensive sample of veterinary medical colleges. For each of 16 veterinary medical colleges, statistical corrections were applied to correct for the effects of range restriction in the predictors and unreliability of the criterion. When fully corrected for both range restriction and unreliability, the resulting validity coefficients were, on average,.53 for the combination of all 3 GRE General Test scores,.59 for undergraduate grade point average, and.71 for GRE scores and undergraduate grade point average together.