Vene

I think it may have used to be like that, but has since been changed. Either that or it is one of those urban legends that will never die.

I think the main way they would find out is if you transferred credits and the degree granting institution referenced them on their official transcript without providing any details. I believe my alma mater's transcript just lists that x credits were transferred in from y university. So, a graduate program will see that and want to know how the applicant actually performed in the transferred classes as well as what they were.

You'd want to submit the transcripts separately either way.

Young, good on you. Now prove you're worth it and apply to their PhD programs and get accepted. Instead of going all morose and self-pitying brush yourself off and do something. Retake the GRE if you have to, use your connections, highlight your other abilities but don't sit and whinge on an internet forum.

I'd say it depends on how much time you have and if you genuinely think two weeks is enough time to learn the test. If you are able to devote a fair bit of time to test preparation you can probably get a respectable score come test day. If you are someone who can quickly learn the unwritten rules of standardized tests you also could have a shot at it. Otherwise, it may be wise to reschedule it. Is it possible to reschedule it in September? Having an extra month to prepare may be all that you need while still giving you enough time to make another attempt. If not, I guess another question you have to ask yourself is how comfortable you are with risk. Taking it in a couple weeks and doing poorly mostly means you are out the time and money for the test itself, but you'll have enough chance in the fall to do well. If you reschedule it for October you may have more time to prepare, but that preparation means that you have to be comfortable with having the one to do well.

It can almost be better for things to start soon as sitting idle gnaws at you. Two weeks should be enough time to get at least a little situated. You can get the apartment set up, learn a little bit of the city's layout, figure out the best route for getting to the university, change your address for various services, and if you need to get a new ID.

A subject test never replaces the general GRE as they measure two different things. A subject test is just that, it measures your aptitude in that particular subject. Very few programs require it because the majority of prospective students have already proven they understand the subject based on undergrad GPA, their SOP, and their LORs. Generally it's only advised to take a subject test if you are switching fields or if your profile is deficient in some manner. Have you not already demonstrated you have a solid grasp on political science? The GRE is not supposed to measure your aptitude in your discipline and it never was meant to do that. It is meant to measure your ability to be a scholar by testing traits like reading comprehension, argument analysis, breadth of vocabulary/grasp on language for the verbal portion and for the quantitative portion it tests your ability to comprehend mathematical functions and problems and if you understand the underlying logic behind numbers. The quantitative section doesn't even go past math concepts taught in high school. You've claimed elsewhere that you understand that different programs weigh different sections of the GRE differently, but it doesn't sound like you do. If polisci really is light on quantitative methods then your Q score doesn't matter and there is no reason to worry about it. I'm in a field where my analytical writing score means nothing, so I didn't care if I scored poorly for it and I didn't even bother to prepare for that section at all.

This is exactly right. Even if we assume there was an injustice being committed cheating means you and you alone are able to overcome it. It does absolutely nothing for every other person taking the test and does absolutely nothing for people who may take it in the future. What to do in such a situation is discuss the matter with the department's chair, the dean, or other university official. But, let's be honest, this has nothing to do with some hypothetical professor. This is all about the GRE, which YoungR is now absolutely obsessed with. To put it bluntly YoungR, you don't have the necessary skills to study in the US. Your grammatical and language skills are at the elementary level. You may be able to improve them with time, but it's just not enough to make it in a university environment. You're also coming across as incredibly juvenile, entitled, and petty with your complaints about the GRE. Yes, it has its flaws and it is not nearly as valuable as ETS thinks it is. And I will agree that it sucks to have to spend a few hundred dollars on a test of marginal value just to get admitted. But this supposed injustice is trivial. Get over yourself.

It is a good school, but over here it is one public university out of many and certainly doesn't rank in the same league as Harvard or MIT. You can certainly be admitted there with a 309, but I wouldn't want to be in a situation where my score is below the average unless I have something else in my application to set me apart.

In the interests of full honesty, you should include every college or university where you received credits. I could potentially see only including colleges which contributed to your BA (so only colleges from which you transferred courses to the degree granting institution), if only because the other school(s) were irrelevant towards the final degree. I do highly doubt that the single B will make any sort of difference as it shouldn't make any appreciable difference in your overall GPA. Assuming the GPA listed in your signature is for 120 credits and the community college class was 3 credits it would bring your cumulative GPA to 3.639. Otherwise, let's say you have 30 credits to do before you graduate and you have 90 credits completed, then it would bring your cGPA to 3.634. Either way, the difference is truly negligible.

I disagree. One of the schools I looked at last year, the University of Minnesota, has lots of nice information on previous year's profiles. I was going to look at their political science data only (as it is your listed interest), but then saw it has information for all graduate programs so I will use that. Unfortunately the data are given with the old score, but I can convert it with this. The Verbal score for 2012-2013 is 564.0, which is 157 with the new test. The Quantitative score for 2012-2013 is 723.6 or 156 with the new test. This is a combined score of 313. A 309 isn't exactly bombing it, but it's not a stellar score and you'd better hope that you're not applying to a program which has a cut off of 310 combined (because people like round numbers). But, combined score isn't even necessarily the most important as it will depend on program for how much they weigh verbal versus quantitative. A low quantitative score won't mean much for a program which isn't math heavy (such as fine art). Conversely, a low verbal score may not matter as much for a field which is extraordinarily math heavy (such as engineering).

Are you at a public or private university? If you're at a private university the points bsharpe made don't really apply to you. Regardless, there are definitely less federal funds available to finance international students in the US and many grants can only be given to domestic students. The administration may well have concluded that it's worth the financial cost to boost their prestige, but I am certain that the financial cost was weighed when they decided they wanted to recruit international students.

Ugh, that is so not the way to motivate people.

I think sizes like that are pretty common. Granted, they tend to accept more than just the 5-10 students as a good number will get multiple offers, so it's not as hopeless as it seems at a glance.

I think it's pretty common for people to have a change in focus from bachelors to masters (or PhD). I think the main thing that matters is that your undergraduate degree gave you the necessary background knowledge. Look at program websites and see what kind of degrees or courses they specify as being necessary/valuable.

Seeing your program interest I'm assuming you have a bachelors degree in biology so even if you don't have two semesters of everything they ask apply anyway. Odds are better than not that having one semester of physics instead of two isn't going to be the thing that keeps you out of an ecology program.

I'd wait until September and then ask them if they can use the same materials you provided last year for this years application season or if they want you to fill out everything again. If you have new information which will make your application stronger I'd suggest filling it out from scratch again.

It is exceedingly unlikely that a spot will open up in August. Even if one did would you have to time to find a place to live near the university?

I highly doubt they can sue you. More likely than not if you say that you can't make it and don't explain why they'll simply be upset at you. If you explain your circumstances, which I'm assuming are legitimate, then nothing bad will happen. The action they can take also depends on what you have or haven't agreed to, simply accepting an offer doesn't amount to a something admissible in court. If there were any terms you agreed to when you accepted then those terms are what bind you and determine what is and isn't permissible for you to do. The university would also need to make you aware of the terms upfront so they can't say 'sign this' and then tell you that you agreed to pay back the stipend if you decline. Either way, the action to take is to talk to the university. You should have the contact info for the program director. Call or email, preferably call, but I understand if time zones make this action difficult.

If the other two are from professors, I see no problem. Personally, one of my letters was from somebody completely outside of academia and she only had a BS. But, I did research under her for a job so I thought it was appropriate (we were also discussing filing a patent at the time she wrote the letter so I definitely wanted her to write for me).

I'm wary of masters degrees myself. FYI, CEN reports that chemists with a MS have higher unemployment than chemists with a BA/BS. That could be because of random variability, but either way it doesn't seem to give an advantage over a bachelors degree.

I can tell you that getting my stuff moved in the new apartment was a huge relief.

That's actually something I'm not worried about, I figure that I'll learn it as I go. Then again, I graduated in 2012 with a biology degree and then spent a year doing chemistry research so I had to adapt to a new field. I was familiar with it, but there was still so much I didn't know. I think the point of undergrad is that when you start doing real work you're able to figure it out as you go and know where to hunt down the resources needed.

Here's why there's a quantitative section, enough graduate programs care about mathematical ability that a test designed for all graduate programs will have it. A particular department can ignore it if it so desires. Here's why the verbal section requires you to know a wide range of words, academic writing is dense and is filled with multisyllabic words and with complex sentence structures. Not everybody takes the TOEFL so the GRE needs to have a method of evaluating prospective students language skills. When you have both a graduate program can look at the GRE score and the TOEFL score to make a determination of a prospective student's ability. UK universities don't require the GRE because the GRE is an American test. To expect them to want it is actually kind of a bizarre thought to me. You seem to be under the impression that the GRE should be tailored to your specific interests. There are subject GREs if a program wants to assess your knowledge of a particular subject matter. But, that's not the purpose of the general GRE, it's a quick evaluation of intellectual ability and is treated as such by admission committees. It may well be the least important aspect of an application. As an aside, you'd do a lot better job of convincing me the verbal GRE doesn't accurately reflect your abilities if your posts weren't so poorly written. I understand English isn't your first language and I'd fully admit I'd be incoherent in any other language, but US programs are taught in English and so incoming students need to have strong English skills.

I agree with this, plus the GRE is a very learnable test and I'm sure you had to do harder math to get your bachelors. Just get above the cutoff and you'll look great with the research experience you have.