Bangalore: According to the 2011December report by the Institute of International Education, the number of Indian students in the United States colleges and universities has dropped down from 104,897 in 2009-10 to 103,895 in the year 2010-11. In spite of this decrease, the number of Indian students was reportedly accounted the second largest international students after China.

The scenario has changed now from last December as you can see that more number of Indian students take up GRE test [Graduate Record Exam] to get admitted to the postgraduate courses including engineering and management courses in the American Universities, reports The Times of India.

There is an increase of 43 percent in the number of Indian students taking the test from 2010 to 2011. Around 47,276 students took the GRE test in the year 2010 and it had increased to 67,605 by the end of 2011. By this increase, India has been able to successfully overtake China [63,086 in 2011] as the country with most graduates seeking to pursue higher education in the United States. Also, there was a 13 percent increase in the overall GRE numbers, with 800,000 students taking the test last year.

A change in the GRE test format had taken place in 2011 and also there was an increase in the number of B-schools that accepted GRE scores across the world in the same year. T SS Murty from TIME, which offers coaching classes for GRE, is of the opinion that the new pattern has become more student-friendly which allows the candidates to come back to questions after they have made the selection. Adding to this, he said that the verbal section has also replaced a lot of the vocabulary-based questions to make it more appropriate. This method helps the students to avoid mugging up too many words that they may not use anymore in the future.

David Payne, Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of higher education division at ETS [Educational Testing Service] said that the growing acceptance of GRE scores by the B-schools is a very good development and also applicants will be able to take one test to get admitted for an MBA or a Post Graduate degree in the science or arts field.

The number of B-schools accepting the GRE scores has almost doubled last year from 450 in the year 2010 to 800 in 2011 and also it has increased four times from 2006 to 2010. Many academics said that accepting the GRE scores will be very helpful for the B-schools as they will be able to get a good mixture of students coming from different backgrounds. According to ETS, in India, over 19 B-schools accept the GRE scores for their management courses  while in China just around 9 management schools accept this score for their programs. To promote GRE among the management schools, the GRE website has come out with a new tool to convert GMAT scores into GRE equivalent.