College students nationwide heaved a collective sigh at the news that plans for the new Graduate Record Examination (GRE) has been officially scrapped. The sudden change is surprising to many, because in February the Educational Testing Service (ETS) promised that the new version would be up and running in September.

"Many graduate admission professionals were looking at alternate means of evaluation to be sure that all applicants were applying to our institutions with a level playing field," said Thomas P. Rock, director of admission at Teachers College of Columbia University. "By limiting access to the GRE examination, a segment of our population was cut off from this standard for admission at many institutions. Had ETS gone ahead with this launch, I think we would have seen more schools opting out of the GRE as a measure of evaluation."

This article appeared in the April 20, 2007 edition of the Observer Online.