Now, as the director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, McNair Scholars Program, a graduate school pipeline program, I come across students who struggle with preparing for and taking the GRE. Their challenges are often due to anxiety around test taking, stereotype threats, not having financial support for the test and prep materials, and not seeing how the test connects to their potential success in graduate school. I have had students who had to work multiple jobs and thus had a difficult time studying for the test. Yet they were exceptional students in their undergraduate programs, only to be told their GRE scores won t cut it for admission into their desired graduate program.