<p>I am a senior history major who is graduating in December and I am just now looking at master’s programs (I am also thinking about law school). I want to pursue an MA in East Asian Studies or history (I want to focus on post-war Japan with emphasis on the bubble period) and I was looking at Cal State schools. My professor recommended Long Beach State, San Jose State, and Sacramento State along with UC Riverside and UC Irvine, but I noticed that the Cal States do not require GRE scores. Does that mean that they aren’t quality programs? I’m leaning towards CSUs because I am looking to save money and I have read that funding is hard to come by for master’s students as opposed to doctoral students.</p>
<p>Some of the CSU programs are quite solid. The fact that they do not require the GRE is not a negative thing. They understand that the GRE measures only a very specific thing, the ability to do well on the GRE. It does not have a high correlation with the ability to do research and it is known to have some significant scoring discrepancies between demographic groups. Your performance in your undergraduate classes and letters of recommendation are much more important. The reason that the GRE is ubiquitous in many Ph.D. programs is simply that it provides a reasonable first screening level (along with GPA) for programs which have a large number of applicants and are highly selective.</p>
<p>Not at all. The GRE for most programs is virtually meaningless and just a formality. Most professor I’ve talked to said that if you have research experience and sold LOR then no one will care about this useless test</p>
<p>If you have a solid score, the only time when it will matter is to award funding.</p>