I recently learned that that several of the pre-vet students who applied to Oregon State University's vet school took their GRE exam last summer without any preparation at all. They were laughing and joking about how they didn't buy any workbooks and they didn't take any practice exams (there are two of these available for free on the GRE website). This isn't a new behavior for them, to be honest. Most of this group have taken required courses more than once because they failed the first time. I've been in several classes with them and noticed that they also seem to have problems coming to class on a regular basis.
The GRE is a four-hour-long, general knowledge exam. It is divided into several sections (math, reading, essay, etc.). It is required by nearly every vet school that I've spent any time investigating, even the ones outside the US such as Edinburgh and Guelph (in Ontario, Canada). Vet schools base their admitting decisions on a complicated set of criteria. Although I hear and read over and over again that a successful vet school applicant distinguishes herself from the pack through her letters of reference and personal statements, there is no doubt that schools use GPA and GRE score as a threshold discriminator, weeding out truly unsuitable candidates quickly so they can spend more time evaluating the more prospective ones. But I will admit that many schools seem to set that threshold relatively low.
Still, wouldn't you want your vet school application to reflect you doing your very best in all of the elements that are considered? Even if the bar is set low, wouldn't it help to distinguish your application if you demonstrated proficiency above and beyond that?
I've taken the GRE before. In fact, it was so many years ago that it was a written exam (it's entirely computerized now) and I was also required to take a second "subject matter" exam (in geology; it was only three hours long, not four). They don't use the subject matter exams anymore. I also took the LSAT around 10 years ago during a brief period when I was considering law school. I earned very high scores for both tests (and received invitations from relevant schools to join their programs). And that was not because I'm a genius but because I put in weeks of hard work preparing for them (the LSAT in particular had some fiendish "logic" problems).
There is a rather unpleasant girl in my French class who provides us with another example. I find her unpleasant in part because she only bathes and washes her hair once a week. Unless she is living in a cardboard box under a bridge (I know she is not), there is no excuse for being so slovenly. But mainly I find her unpleasant because I heard her tell her friend that since the homework only counts for 10% of our grade, she just needed to do half of it, and since attendance counts for another 10%, she didn't need to come to class every day. She also said that she can ignore one of the writing assignments because that will only be a few percent off too. She's not shooting for an A, although her comprehension of French is good enough that she could get that grade. No, she is aiming her sights on just passing with a minimum input of effort and time.
This striving for mediocrity is inexplicable to me. Even more of a mystery, all of the people involved seem somehow proud of their behavior, acting like they have gotten away with something or pulled the wool over the eyes of the system. They act like they have achieved something when it seems to me they have in fact lost a lot more in self respect and opportunities to learn.
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