clandry
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Posts posted by clandry
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After working on this app, I realized that I need to strengthen my broader impacts areas. NSF has a huge emphasis on minority and women participation.
I'm thinking of doing some tutoring with a focus on these groups, but how do I go about seeking something like this?
I mean, wouldn't it sound weird for a guy to say "i want to tutor women only?" How do you guys suggest I go about helping to broaden participation in these underrepresented groups without sounding really awkward?
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@awells27
That is a good suggestion to follow. Yes, quantitative reasoning is usually more important for engineering and the sciences, but verbal reasoning counts just as much, so I'm fairly disappointed in my results.
The standards for top graduate programs are usually 90 percentile for both verbal and quantitative regardless of academic field, though I don't know about analytic writing.
You should tell us where you got that from
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Hey guys,
I was wondering how well can the analytical writing score offset a mediocre verbal reasoning score - specifically 5.5 and 157, respectively. Those correspond to 97 percentile vs. 73 percentile ranges. How does the analytical writing score come into play for Ph.D. graduate programs in the first place? Is it subjective to the applications committee or is it usually considered equally along with VR and QR?
Main reason I wanted to ask is because I'm still deciding on whether I should retake the GRE. I want to get admitted into top Ph.D. programs for mechanical engineering. I do know that GRE isn't the deciding factor but it's always nice to show that at least you've got a strong competitive aspect to your application.
Thank you in advance for the discussions!
I'm an undergrad at Princeton's mech&aero program. I can tell you that verbal GRE scores are practically a non-issue for our grad programs. Same can be said for analytical, although you will find some schools (e.g., Cornell&MIT) do place quite a bit of emphasis on the analytical portion. The program here is on par with MIT in terms of selectivity. I'm tempted to say it's even more selective since the program is very small. The only other notable engineering school that is more selective is Caltech. I know for certain that GRE scores no matter how good they are will not get you into our program.
What's strange is that our average GRE Verbal for admitted students in engineering is a 161, but I think it's just a coincidence that this is relatively high.
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So there are 2 timed practice tests on the powerprep II software.
Are the questions for the 2 timed practice tests the same every time?
I originally thought they were, but today I took one of the tests again and none of the questions seemed familiar except the first verbal section (definitely not the second). So I'm guessing they change the questions?
Either that or my memory is horrible.
Also, are the questions adaptive (i.e., difficulty of second section is contingent with how well you do on 1st)?
If it is adaptive, does anyone know how many different sections they have?
I need more practice tests and since powerprep II is the best indicator of your real score, I'd rather keep taking those tests, but not if I get the same questions every time.
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By the way, does anyone know if it's the same person reading both essays?
Are the use of conjunctions frowned upon?
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It seems by using the 3 body paragraph template, at least 2 of the paragraphs should be examples supporting your claim. Should the 3rd be an additional example or a counterpoint to your claim or perhaps a combination of the two?
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Is it "for sure" at this point that the deadline will be pushed back?
If so, how long of an extension should be expect?
Has there been extensions in deadines before?
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Has anyone here tried using a generic response for the analytical writing section?
By that I mean, you have a template and maybe even some of the sentences filled in. Of course, this would be a generic sentence, but all you'd have to do during the test is change a few words in the sentence to match the prompt?
I'm thinking of making up a template and just using that to save some time during the actual test.
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at the end of each experience, I did include a statement stating the broader impacts associated with that experience. I will try condensing more but I really feel like I can't take out much more. I also have a few paragraphs emphasizing my desire to teach. Is it worth it to have a reference for a to be submitted paper?The only references I included in my previous research essays were to my own presentations, posters and articles. They're pretty important because they show the reviewers that you have experience presenting your work to a wider audience and that your work has been accepted by the scientific community. To save space, each research experience had a sentence explaining what the work had gone into (e.g. "This work was accepted in publication venue1 and I spoke about it at conference2.") with superscripts to the reference. I had a single sentence at the end noting that all references were to the part of the application where you list your presentations and honors. This part of the application is a text box in fastlane outside of the essays.
It's great that you have a month to revise this essay. I suggest going through your previous research experiences to see what you can tighten up to make more room to drive home your broader impacts credentials and plans. When I was revising, I looked at each sentence or point and asked myself what message I was trying send, what prompt questions I was trying to address, and if I had done so elsewhere. I also considered if that particular message was important as others. I used the rubric that's part of Robin G. Walker's GRFP Essay Insights to help with this.
In my early drafts, I went into too much detail with my previous research experiences. I needed to simplify to fit all of my points. Exactly how I did it was not as important as that I had done it. I left enough information to show I had the background for my research proposal but it was mostly an abstract level summary which also spoke about how I had grown as a research who works with others, leads, presents, etc. I didn't include references to other works. I think that would be too much detail. It might vary by field of study though.
Most of my experiences did not result in a publication, presentation or anything of the sort.
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I am having a lot of trouble getting under the 3 page limit. I had a 4.5 page essay and trimmed it down to 3 pages. My concern is I see successful applicants in the past including references in their previous research essays. There's no way I can fit that into mine. How important is this?
I only had about half a page to talk about some of the outreach events I did. That's another concern I have is that I couldn't elaborate on my outreach events.
The majority of my essay are descriptions of my previous research.
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I was looking at ETS's Official GRE Guide and looking at the scores for a 5+. Are those examples and scores representative of the score you might receive? Or will they grade a bit easier when reviewing?
What I noticed was they even the scores of a 5 demonstrated a very strong sentence structure and sounded very academic. I feel this is something I may struggle with under a 30minute time constraint.
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Thanks guys for the responses.
What I am thinking of doing is remembering, what I would call, a generic response for both issue&argument and employing that during the actual test. I know you will likely get a prompt yo've never seen before, but I feel this generic (that's will it's called generic) will still work. Has anyone tried this before?
I'm just scared to run into a topic where I have absolutely no idea what to write about.
Also, if I am someone who has never or like doing planning before writing, do you think I should start now or keep doing what I'm doing (that is, not planning)? I just feel time crunched if I have to spend a few min planning.
I am aiming for a 5.0.
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Do you guys have any suggestions on how to score high on the analytical section?
Several poeple, including a GRE instructor, have suggested that I should use several "GRE words" per paragraph. They suggested that I shouldn't overdo it with the flowery words. They also said that there's a correlation between length and score and longer passages typically receive higher scores.
One of my main concerns is just getting stuck on a passage that seems really foreign to you, so foreign that you have a hard time coming up with things to write about. In that case, are you pretty much screwed?
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Can someone fill me in on NSF shutting down? Will there not be a GRFP application this year?.. That would make me mad as I have already spent a good deal of time with the essays.....
Analytical - Analyzing an Argument
in GRE/GMAT/etc
Posted
For these kind of prompts:
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
This is one of the prompts for the argument section.
Most of the prompts I have practiced thus far are stating the assumptions ones...and exposing the argument's flaws based off of these assumptions.
For the prompt pasted above, is it similar to the assumption prompts? It doesn't seem like the prompt above calls for a test taker to claim whether or not the argument/recommendation is flawed, just that it wants a discussion of the questions needed.