no2chem

The problem is many American depts are wary of international students that don't have a strong command of English, especially one that has problems in other areas. And the only way you'll really be able to convince them is with at least a good GRE score... Your GRE verbal is alarmingly low, while a department might just gloss over it if you are an American student, since you are international they will automatically suspect that you don't speak English well (and yes, even American students that speak English fluently sometimes get low verbal scores!). As to getting your score up quick, a score of 320 makes me suspect you have problems with the test overall... The GRE verbal doesn't just test vocabulary, although it is a major component, especially with the antonyms section. Before you start memorizing words, pick up a GRE study aid and read the 'how to take the test' section carefully. You probably will be able to increase scores in other areas, such as reading comprehension, without having to do lots of memorization... You just need to know the correct way to approach the test.

The first thing you probably should do is fix the 320 and 3.5. You need to show that you're capable of writing/reading academic papers, so you should probably work on getting it to about 650 and 5.0. I don't think GRE subject really matters. I'm told its really only used if you have a magically high score or if you don't have a cs/ee degree. ug gpa is something you can't fix, but keep grad gpa high, and definitely publish. here's a tip - your publications don't have to be all academic, if you create one of those original things that ends up on hack-a-day or something, that can bring you towards the top of the pile... (well, i suppose if you apply to theory they will care about this stuff less...) but as the previous poster said, there are obviously some institutions that you will NOT be able to get into because they seem to filter at some ug gpa level...