<p>One thing that may be worrisome to Oberlin is the apparently lower performance on GRE subject tests (which test subject knowledge for students who major in a subject and which some PhD programs ask for) for physics, geology, chemistry, and biochemistry compared to other majors (47.0% to 54.7% percentile rankings in those subjects, versus 61.0% to 81.2% percentile rankings in other subjects).</p>
<p>However, these are from 2003, and it is possible that this may reflect greater strengths of the overall pools of these majors taking the GRE subject tests, rather than weakness in Oberlin’s students of these majors taking the GRE subject tests. For example, Oberlin physics majors were in the 47.0% percentile, while Oberlin psychology majors were in the 81.2% percentile. Does that mean that Oberlin physics majors are weaker, or that the overall pool of psychology majors is weaker (so that similar strength Oberlin students score a higher percentile against a weaker overall pool)?</p>