Most studies find the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) is, at best, a weak predictor of academic achievement. Still the test is widely used to make significant decisions concerning the distribution of educational resources, such as determining who gets into which graduate school programs and/or who receives financial assistance. The present study suggests GRE endures despite of its low predictive validity because it meets the political and economic needs of certain academic and business interests. The analysis concludes there is little incentive for universities to either drop or deemphasize the exam despite its predictive shortcomings. Therefore, the GRE will remain integral to academic screening.

The HEIs needs to streamline and align all its planning and budgeting operating procedures to identify and produce data and evidence for the assessment of the performance outcomes to make them less tedious and chaotic, more efficient and effective in terms of time and efforts through a standardized and disciplined well-planned approach. This meant that a full-blown PMS (Performance Management, System) needs to be created and put into operation to ensure the linkages and interactions of the QMS (Quality Management System) the IMS (Information Management System) and the PMS (Planning Management System) that are fully aligned and are congruent with each other. The SPMS framework as discussed in the following chapters is aimed at achieving a common linkage across the PMS-IMS-QMS to achieve the HEI “management through measurement” approach. Used in conjunction and in tandem with each other, the QMS and the PMS with the IMS as the evidence based mechanism; the SPMS (Strategic Performance Management System) will serve as the foundation of the performance management and the governance systems of the HEIs’ endeavors towards progressive and continuous improvements and innovations of the educational value to the stakeholders. It is also meant to be a pragmatic approach to show how the HEI can use this as a guideline to create their customized performance management system.

Many universities require submission of Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores with applications thereby invalidating other general measurements. The test’s popularity is spreading although research has been inconclusive on the correlation between completion of an advanced degree and GRE scores. It is also unclear whether the items measured on the GRE measure ‘intelligence’ or ‘ability’. Despite this and other charges against the test such as discrimination related to gender and international students, as of 2010 scores on the GRE General Test are accepted as a reliable admissions instrument at several ‘top’ business schools; the new non-cognitive supplementary product to GRE, the Personal Potential Index, is also gaining acceptance without critical analysis. Particularly focusing on GRE, I argue in this paper that ‘general’ standardized admissions tests intended for graduate level study neither test ‘intelligence’ nor ‘ability’ but more likely the applicant’s ‘volition,’ more specifically his or her ‘will to acceptance’ which cannot assume predictive validity of degree completion; and rather than questioning the efficacy of a single standardized intelligence test as an admissions tool, universities are using the GRE General Test as an exclusionary instrument based on an anticompetitive tying arrangement with the test makers.

Achievement of advanced literacy as a goal of foreign language (FL) study within the available amount of time requires that FL departments construct a well-articulated program and optimize student learning at each stage of the curriculum. One essential element of such optimization is the development of assessment procedures to place students into courses that enable successful fostering of their abilities. Ideally, such assessment practices should incorporate aspects of textual literacy, including a well-motivated link between meaning-oriented textual semantics and the required lexicogrammatical features. This article reports on the revision and validity evaluation of a C-test as one component of the placement test in the Georgetown University German program and as an instrument that includes accounting for textual literacy. We begin with the reasons for the test revision and report on the development and evaluation of the new C-test texts, which enabled better alignment with the curriculum and demonstrate a fitting range of reliable distinctions among examinees of broadly differing abilities. The article concludes by highlighting the central role of contextually relevant assessment practices for the success of a program that aims to develop advanced literacy in a FL and the lessons learned throughout the evaluation process.