Graduate School Applications Likely To Surge

Graduate school applications are expected to surge again this year, according to a survey released by test prep company Kaplan on Tuesday.

As is expected in a difficult labor market created by a recession, many laid-off workers and recent graduates are considering graduate school as their best strategy, said Lee Weiss, who is assistant director of pre-graduate programs at Kaplan.

The survey was conducted shortly after the Educational Testing Service—the administrator of the Graduate Record Exam—announced that it will be unveiling a completely new GRE exam next August.

The Kaplan survey results showed that 78 percent of graduate schools expect an increase in the number of applicants, maintaining the momentum of the 8-percent growth in the total number of applicants from 2008 to 2009.

Reflecting this trend, Harvard Law School has seen an increase from 7,168 applicants in 2008 to 7,610 in 2010.

These increases speak to growing frustration with the current job market, and they will also lead to a more competitive admissions process, according to Kaplan.

Additionally, the Kaplan survey found that there has been a 53-percent increase from two years ago among students applying to graduate school immediately after college.

“A lot of people are uncertain about their futures,” Weiss said. “The increase demonstrates that many students aren’t that optimistic about job opportunities.”

The upcoming change in the GRE test will be highly significant for future applicants, since 30 percent of graduate schools still consider it to be the most important admission factor, according to the Kaplan survey.

Weiss also said that while the test change will amount to the biggest in the GRE’s history, many college admissions programs don’t know much about the new test, and 77 percent polled don’t know if it will be a better predictor of a student’s ability.

Students who take the current GRE will still have valid test scores for the next five years, Weiss noted.