zzzboy

Hello. I am applying for a stats master's right now, and I already have 3 recommendations from professors on hand. I was wondering if adding a letter of rec from a doctor would be a good idea. It is an excellent letter and it even talks a little bit about how I had to use statistics to compare different groups for a clinical study. The reason I have that letter was that I was going to apply to medical school but decided not to. My biggest concern is that they will just think that I am just going for a master's as a second choice since it would seem like I was going for med school because of the letter (or perhaps they might think I didn't make it to medical school so now I'm getting my master's as a backup). Thanks.

No I think you should go for it. You can probably get a conditional acceptance in which they will make you take necessary undergrad courses in your first semester/quarter.

^ i have never seen a vague question on any gre practice test or on the real thing before.

^ that is utter bullshit. that fact alone should tell you that manhattan prep is garbage. kaplan is the always the best independent prep company. princeton review is always garbage.

I urge everyone to save the 4 real ETS practice tests (2 in book, 2 in Powerprep) until your last month or few weeks of studying. Those tests are simply invaluable. They exactly simulate the difficulty of the real test and give you a perfect picture of the types of questions asked, the level of inferring you have to make in verbal, etc etc. You should only take them when you are confident in your vocab + know all the math concepts. You should not use one of those tests for an initial diagnostic score, but rather as an accurate assessment of how you might actually perform on the real test. This strategy of saving real practice tests has allowed me to score near perfect SAT and GRE scores. Another super strategy is to somehow mark your wrong answers on your test without actually knowing what the correct answer is. On Powerprep it's really easy because you have the option of revealing of the correct answer. It's really important that you discover the correct answer to a question YOURSELF. You learn a LOT more when you figure out why something is wrong vs. when a book simply tells you that your answer is wrong and gives you the right answer. This is my last post on the forum. Please do not waste those ETS tests!

Agreed. The best way for OP to improve is to keep writing essays under timed conditions and get familiar with as many GRE topics as possible.

I'm not saying that longer essays aren't generally more favorable, I'm just saying that substance is obviously the most important. The essays are a real time crunch, so it would be foolish for someone to forgo substance and clarity to hastily add an extra paragraph or something. I do agree that the standard 5 paragraph essay for the Issue task is the way to go. Having 3 distinct examples makes for a good essay. But if you are pressed for time and haven't started a third body paragraph or can't think of a third example, it's fine...just improve your other two body paragraphs. For the Argument task, I think format is of very little importance. I'm quite sure you could write a single, long paragraph and easily get a 6 if it's well thought-out. I'm not encouraging this approach, but it's just important in this task to find and discuss as many assumptions/fallacies as possible.

There are no testing strategies. No one who scores high on the test has any strategy in mind...I always skip over the strategy sections and just go straight to practice problems. The guide is helpful because you know exactly what difficulty the test will be. I agree that it won't help you if you have a ton of verbal studying and a ton of math concepts to learn. However, the ETS guide should always be used once you are confident in your skills...you need to make sure you don't waste any tests just for a diagnostic score. They are priceless. Google "ultraclean GRE" for the argument topic. Google "technological leisure GRE" for the issue topic.

Haha I don't think people realize that official guides by the test company are always the #1 way to study. Nothing can mimic the effectiveness of taking real practice tests made by the test-administering company itself.

It was the exact same difficulty as my 4 real practice tests. My math practice test scores were 170/170/170/165, verbal was 159/162/166/165. I don't think I studied very hard =( Essay topics were about UltraClean and "should technology serve to increase leisure time." I'm not sure what you mean by crazy reading comp. questions. Even if a passage is weird, the questions are typically easier. Everything works out in the end because harder tests mean that you can miss more questions to get a certain score. I personally do worse on easier tests because I make stupid mistakes, which are certainly more costly when you are expected to get nearly every question right. My test was definitely medium difficulty. I know what hard GRE vocab and math questions entail, and I only had a few.

The only studying I did for the Oct. 14 GRE was reading the Official GRE Guide by ETS. I did a total of 4 real practice tests (2 in book, 2 on CD). The vocab list I created consisted of words found in the book and on the 4 practice tests that I did not know. I also wrote zero essays prior to my test. I just looked at sample Argument/Issue essays in the GRE Guide and learned how to approach both types of essays. Score: 170 Q, 165 V, 5.5 Writing I am willing to give advice to anyone who needs it!

I just took it and got a 170Q 165V. I'm really surprised as to why you got a 163 though. That's missing over 6 questions...it's like high school math lol. How could you possibly run out of time? The verbal is way harder than the quant...

Hello. I am looking to apply to a Master's programs in Statistics and Applied Statistics throughout the country in November because I want to become a data scientist. I am a graduate of UCLA with a BS in neuroscience. I have a very limited math background given that I am a neuroscience major. I have taken Calc 1-3 and I earned A's in all three. I have also taken non-calculus based statistics and I got an A. My GPA is a 3.501 and my projected GRE scores are above 165 in both Verbal and Math (taking it in 4 weeks). The problem is that my lower division GPA is a 3.9 while my upper division GPA is very low at 2.6. I did nothing but party junior year and onward, and a D in my final quarter really brought it down. 1) Will I be able to gain acceptance in a decent program somewhere in the country? My letters are pretty average, and I plan to apply to 20+ programs. My essay should be very good. 2) Do I need to take the mathematics subject test GRE to show the committees that I can do well in math? I signed up for it last week and honestly it seems as if I don't have enough time (I have one month). I know only about 20% of the material in my review book, and it's so condensed that learning new stuff is hard. Regular GRE math is ridiculously easy, so I will certainly be in the top 95% percentile. 3) What should I emphasize in my essay? 4) Should I reach out to program directors and stuff (especially ones at UCLA) to pitch myself more? Thank you.