[nabs-l] taking the GRE

[Sean Whalen]

While I acknowledge that, in a perfect world, blind students would
take the exact same test as sighted students, I think it is very
important to keep in mind that ETS has a history of outreach to and
communication with blind students as they have developed accessible
versions of the GRE. ETS has been proactive, and, in my opinion,
certainly not discriminatory. And, the reality is that, pretty much by
definition, accommodated conditions for the GRE, or any test, will
differ from those under which the majority of students take them. Some
bodies, LSAC comes immediately to mind, do definitely engage in
discriminatory practices, but I think ETS has a very strong record.

My understanding is that schools cannot even see whether or not a test
was taken under accommodations, but I am not 100% sure on that. As for
the issue of leaving accommodated scores out of statistical analyses,
that has to be the case, for the reasons that Cindy mentioned.

I would be concerned if the lack of ability to take the version of the
dynamic test put blind students at a disadvantage by limiting the
ability to get high scores due to the impossibility of being branched
off into the harder questions, but I can’t imagine that this is the
case.

Finally, regarding having to spend half of your double time dictating
an essay to a scribe rather than spending all the time writing, I’d
have to ask what we really think is fair here. We get double time
because it takes longer to do this. Why should I get twice as long as
anybody else to write the essay?

In sum, though I admit the system may not be perfect, we ought to be
careful about labeling things discriminatory. And, in truth, we should
be glad that we have a strong partnership with ETS and that our input
is taken into consideration. If all gatekeepers of standardized tests
were as good on this front as ETS, we’d surely be in a better place.

Sean