1936 or 1949? It depends which source you read
Sources give 1936 when they mean the Carnegie test and 1949 when they mean the ETS product. One author suspects the 1936 date runs together the test's beginning and its wider use.7
Four deans and a foundation
The 1936 experiment was a joint project of the graduate deans of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.2 The aim was to compare applicants from different colleges on one scale instead of relying on subjective judgement or the prestige of their college.3
One source links the need to the Great Depression.5 At first the test was given only at the founding universities, to see whether it predicted success in graduate school.3
Beyond the Ivy League
Public universities followed one at a time. By the mid-1940s the test also helped assess GI Bill veterans, whose varied academic paths made an objective measure useful.3
Five testing offices become one
ETS was set up in October 1947. Its offices included the Graduate Record Office, the College Entrance Examination Board and the Cooperative Test Service.4
Critics have long asked whether ETS is a testing agency, a curriculum clearing house or a records office, and whether its tests are fair. The GRE and the National Teacher Exam, both listed under 1949, are among its best-known products.4
Verbal on the left, quantitative on the right
The earliest GRE tested only verbal and quantitative reasoning.2 Answer all six in any order. Your two subscores fill in as you go.
Items written for this page in common verbal and quantitative formats, not taken from any GRE form. Not scored on a GRE scale.
Two sections then, three now
The test changed little in its first decade or so.2 A major 2011 revision brought new question designs and new score scales.5 Today's test takes 1 hour 58 minutes, and scores stay valid for five years.1 Scores for the 1949 test aren't described in these sources.
References
- [1]Wikipedia contributors. Graduate Record Examinations (accessed 30 Sept 2026).en.wikipedia.org
- [2]GRE history. Manhattan Review.manhattanreview.com
- [3]Graduate Record Examinations. Grokipedia (2026).grokipedia.com
- [4]Educational Testing Service. In Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies. SAGE Knowledge.sk.sagepub.com
- [5]Graduate Record Examinations (exam) overview. StudyGuides.com (2026).studyguides.com
- [6]Graduate Record Examination (2009 mirror of the Wikipedia article).home.etf.rs
- [7]Testizen. Where the GRE came from? Medium (2019).medium.com
- [8]Educational Testing Service. Grokipedia (2026).grokipedia.com
Related historical tests
The law school admission test, first given in February 1948. Together with the GRE it shows admissions testing spreading into graduate and professional schools after the war.
The College Board's aptitude test for college entry. The College Board also joined ETS, so the SAT and GRE ended up with the same administrator.
The American Council on Education's college-admissions intelligence test. The ACE was one of the bodies whose testing work was merged into ETS, alongside the Carnegie Foundation's GRE.
The first standardized admission test for medical schools. It shows a graduate-level programme using testing to predict success eight years before the GRE experiment began.
The WWII test given to about 12 million recruits. Wartime testing on this scale made standardized exams familiar to the GI Bill veterans who later took the GRE.
A 1949 test that removes language and schooling on purpose. The GRE does the reverse, measuring verbal and quantitative skills built up through years of study.