I didn't want to start a whole new topic, so I took a guess at putting this here. Anyway, when do you all recommend taking the GRE? Sometime during Junior year? Beginning of Senior year? Thanks in advance.
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread I took mine in October of my senior year. Gets it out of the way while giving enough time for a retake if a bad day occurs.
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread October of senior year is when I took mine, too.
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread Awesome. Thanks, guys. For some reason I was thinking earlier would be better. Isn't the next testing date after the October test usually in December? That seems like it'd be cutting it close, given that many programs require their applications to be in sometime during December.
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread I thought that there are now testing centers all over the country and you can take it any time you please. That was the case when I took it 12, 13 years ago...
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread I took mine 6-7 years ago and, from what I remember, you can take the test whenever you want.
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread http://www.ets.org/gre/general/register/centers_dates It lists three test dates (10/23/10, 11/20/10, 2/12/11), which makes me think you can only take it on those three dates. But before it lists those dates, it says "You may take the GRE General Test (computer-based or paper-based) only once per calendar month, and no more than five times within any 12-month period." That makes me think you guys are right in that you can take it whenever you want. Figuring out when to take the test is going to be harder than the test itself!
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread The physical exam is much more intense and longer. The computerized exam is actually expedient. The way it works is that it gives you questions from easy to hard. If you are at the lower end of the spectrum, each section will take you 30 minutes b/c it tries to get a precise reading of your score. But if you get, say, 4 easy questions right, then move on to moderately difficult and you ace those, it skips to the difficult questions. I finished some of the vocab sections in less than 10 minutes. And you get your score immediately. Which is nice!
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread Yep. My roommate took the computerized version last October and he said the best part about it was getting your score back immediately. He did very well and is off to a top school for his field now.
Re: The Random (Post-Modern???) Thoughts on Education Thread I made the mistake of taking it in December (all ancient history now!), and was too late for most of the grad schools to which I wanted to apply. Made for an odd and interesting year off . . . And I'll pare this off to its own thread.
That's not too difficult to recover. Start reading on your own. Delve into an interesting class you took by doing the supplementary readings on the syllabus. Read, read, read!
Well right now I am deep into "Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy" I'll get back into serious books..................soon
I got 670 Verbal, 660 Quantitative, and 5.5 on Analytical Writing. I took it back in 2006. I didn't give a damn about my Quantitative score, as I was applying to history PhD programs. I was disappointed by my Verbal score. I studied vocabulary from a book that included 500 or so words. Not a single one of those words actually showed up on the test. Oh well. I did quite well on the Analytical writing (the score is out of a possible 6), which is I think what mattered most for my purposes. It's really hard to know how GRE scores affect your chances of getting into a program, as some pay close attention to those scores, and others hardly consider them, paying more attention to things like recommendations, writing samples, statements of purpose, etc.
I applied to 8 schools and got into 2. I'm now very happy where I am (University of Florida), and considering that I met my wife here, I wouldn't have had it any other way. However, Florida wasn't my top choice (it was Wisconsin or Texas). PhD programs are always quite competitive, MA programs often less so (not least because MA students usually foot their own bill while PhD are usually paid for and include a stipend. Apologies if you already know all this). Over the past few years, I have seen some of the absolute smartest people I know fail to get into graduate programs. I think that the numbers of applicants are way up these days-- this was true even before the recession. My advice for those considering grad school is to apply to a LOT of schools. Honestly, once you've identified your particular area of interest, find out which schools are good for that, and apply to all of them.
710 verbal, 770 math, 5.0 on the stupid bullshit analytical writing section. I was applying to cultural anthropology PhD programs at the time, and I know for a fact that several of the ("top 10") departments I applied to simply shredded my GRE scores because they choose not to use them in evaluating applicants.