Background information: I am 23 years old and graduated in 2010 with a BS in Business Administration. I graduated with an overall GPA of 3.5. I want to pursue a Master's degree in Library Information Science. I do have some volunteer experience in a library setting.
Basically, I only want to go to one school: UCLA. They have a very good program with a lot of internship opportunities, which is very important in this economy. In addition, I want to go to school in-state. There is only two MLIS program in California.
I am only planning to apply to UCLA. I know it is silly but I don't want to go to any other universities. Plus, I can't justify paying out-of-state tutition for this degree.
UCLA requires a GRE score and states that most of the students that get admitted into their program scored in the 75% percentile (580V, 700Q, 5 AWA). They also have a 70% acceptance rate, so everyone who apply must be pretty intelligent?
I took the GRE today and my scores are 380V, 680Q, 4AWA (My guess). I know. It is a very low score. I am planning to retake the GRE again in September.
I didn't really study for this test because I didn't have a lot of time. I used to work about 50-60 hours a week as part of the Americorps program. It was a very rewarding experience but I seriously don't have time to study. This position ended in mid-June and my GRE test was on June 30. I had about 2.5 weeks to study.
I knew I was going to get a low Verbal score since I didn't really study the vocabulary list. My goals for taking this test were to gain some experience and break the 1000 points threshold.
Questions: I am very bad at vocabulary. It has been a weakness of mine since I started elementary school, thus, the low Verbal score. Does anyone have any good strategies for learning and retaining vocabulary words?
What is the new 75% percentile for the new GRE?
Final advices to a young, inexperienced, poor graduate?