Are there any major U.S. universities that don’t accept the home-based GRE for graduate programs?

Yash Mothia

While the acceptance of the home-based GRE (Graduate Record Examination) has become increasingly common among U.S. universities, some major institutions still do not accept this format for their graduate programs. Although many schools adapted their admissions processes during the pandemic, a few have maintained more traditional testing requirements.

For example, Yale University established the fact that it does not accept the home-based GRE for some of its graduate programs. Yale highlights the importance of standardized testing in a controlled environment and prefers that applicants take the GRE at an official testing center. The same thing is also true with Princeton University since some departments there do not accept the home-based GRE, especially in its graduate engineering program.

Other competitive programs also within institutions, like the University of California system, may be cynical about home-based testing. Many UC campuses are very liberal about testing any possible scores to be sent, but some science and engineering programs, for instance require people to take the test in person because of standardized conditions.

Even some programs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago have been cautious in embracing home-based GRE. This has led to the possible application of different acceptance policies across their schools.

It is the intending student's responsibility to research well about the requirements of specific programs they are interested in. Individual departments and, at times, universities can have such differing admissions policies. The only guaranteed way to find out what the specific stance of a program is regarding acceptance of home-based GRE's would be to contact the admissions office or check the official website of that respective program.

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