Admission tests

The American system of higher education is not arranged at a federal level, which means that there are significant differences between institutions in quality and grading. To assess potential candidates, most universities require you to take one or more standardized admission exams.

These exams allow American universities to assess students from different backgrounds and school systems in terms of:

Verbal reasoning and language analysis
Critical thinking
Analytical Writing
Quantitative reasoning and data analysis
Subject-specific knowledge

Every university, program and level require you to take a different set of exams. Scores needed for admission may also vary by institution.

The following pages offer further information about the most common admission exams:

For Master’s and PhD students: Graduate Record Examination (GRE).
For MBA students: Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT).
For JD Programs: LSAT (Voor een LLM hoef je meestal geen LSAT te doen)
For medicine: USMLE of MCAT