Syracuse University’s Student Association is providing financially-accessible test preparation to juniors and seniors. 

The Graduate Record Examination, or GRE, is often required for applying to graduate schools. SA has created a program to help aspiring graduate students prepare for the standardized test without burdening them financially, said Steph Hausman, chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, at Monday night’s Assembly meeting. 

“We realized there was a lot of students who were taking the GRE, but were either having to pay thousands of dollars for tutoring or were having to teach themselves the material on their own,” Hausman said. 

The GRE preparation program will run from Feb. 1 to March 7 and will include six sessions, Hausman said. The sessions will prepare students for each of the test’s three sections —  verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and analytical writing — and will conclude with an administered practice exam. 

Students in the program will pay a $50 deposit upon starting the course. If they attend all six sessions, that deposit will be returned, Hausman said. 

Hausman led the initiative alongside Vishwas Paul, a student representative to SU’s Board of Trustees. SA President Mackenzie Mertikas, also a student representative to the board, put Paul in contact with Hausman when Paul proposed involving SA to create the test preparation. 

“Financial accessibility was one of the things we ran on, and there are a lot of students at this university who are preparing to further their educations,” Mertikas said.

Amanda Nicholson, assistant provost and dean of student success, helped hire tutors, establish a curriculum and secure funding for the program, Hausman said. The program initially had 25 seats, but all of the spots filled within 24 hours of opening, Hausman said. She appealed for an additional 5 seats. 

Hausman said this year’s program will be a trial run for future GRE preparation courses at SU. She hopes the program will eventually expand to include other graduate-level standardized tests, such as the Law School Admission Test, or LSAT. 

“The goal is for this to not be a pilot in the future, for this to be continued every semester for multiple sections,” said Hausman. “We’ve had such an overwhelming response of people wanting to take this course.”

Other business:

• The Assembly elected Brendan Treloar as Speaker of the Assembly and David Bruen as chair of the Board of Elections and Management.
• The Judicial Review Board removed Assembly representative Enzo Castillo for repeatedly missing meetings and office hours. The board placed representative Bennett Cooper on probation for similar reasons. 

Published on January 14, 2020 at 12:32 am

Contact Chris: cjhippen@syr.edu