jujubea

I'd send the new ones only. Your point about showing consistently "not great" scores is one worth considering. They certainly aren't bad scores! But, it's possible it would reflect poorly that even though you could have studied and improved, you did not (I'm assuming this, I haven't looked at the equivalency tables for your old scores). I wouldn't beat yourself up about this point though - just be aware of how it could be viewed.

Ah of course - initial prep time is what I'm looking at right now. I can imagine a 2-3 hours per tailored app & SOP after that. Yes indeed ... coming from Canada is its own set of unique requirements. I hope your J-1 application was painless, for both of you. And if I were in your shoes, no way would I have forked over that kind of dough for campus visits. I'm looking at a few hundred dollars total to visit three schools. UCSB was "free" because I was already going through on my road trip! Thank you for this great info. We essentially cannot afford a dime for grad school, so partial funding wouldn't cut it, not somewhere that pricey. I'll have to look more closely at my Department's offerings... As for Boulder, we assumed I'd be commuting - where we live is likely going to be determined by the kids' needs in terms of schooling first, then affordability second, proximity to spouse's work next, and proximity to my work/school after that. As much as I cannot stand a commute, I do have ambitions and $$$ requirements, and if Boulder meets those needs then I will gladly suck it up and drive! I'm really quite excited to see ABQ and UNM, and the faculty have been so responsive and insightful in their brief e-mails... and the MA Program Director, with the Department Chair, literally wrote the textbook on communication. Between all four schools .... ah.. it's hard - they each have their stand-out strengths. I'm hoping these visits will do me some good in judging livability and viability. I noticed you're looking at CSUMB - that's a really beautiful area, though depending on where you're from and what you're used to, the population is quite small. Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur are just unbeatable though, especially if you're an outdoorsy person. Then you have Laguna Seca events going on, Pebble Beach events, farmer's markets, and you have everyone from the super-rich-featured-in-magazines-rich, to the barely scraping by, and everyone in between. Santa Cruz is just up the road, and the whole Bay Area is only about an hour's drive away. If CSUMB had what I need, I'd be applying in a heartbeat.

Wow, yeah, you make some great points, too. Especially from an objective, numbers-only standpoint - that does make a statement about the value of these trips. Two hours to prepare an application ... I wish I could be so quick! Perhaps I am spending an obsessive amount of time on mine... Granted, each of my schools is notably different, and will even need different things in the LOR's in addition to the SOP's (in fact, three of them have entirely different rules and requirements for the SOP's, and the fourth is a different subject altogether!), so I won't be too hard on myself about it. I also have a few more big factors in the form of a spouse and children - we have to check out schools for the kids in the area, whether we can afford to live somewhere decent, and whether my guy can find employment/would want to be employed in the area, and stay in his field. He's mid-career so this is crucial for him. I'm hoping to learn about those things while I'm there, too, although thanks to the interwebs we can find a lot of that online anyway. In fact, that was how we initially ruled out a few other schools who met my requirements, but not theirs. As a complete aside - I think it's awesome you're doing planetary sciences! I could definitely see an alternative educational trajectory for myself in that direction... I'd ask you about it but I think that's called threadjacking... so I'll stop here.

Aha... lucky you! When are you taking the test? Mine's Friday!

Double thanks. I took the full PowerPrep practice test today and made the kind of improvements in my score I had more expected to see. When all's said and done on Friday I'll come by the Practice/Actual thread and post all the different practice scores I've gotten (Barron's, Kaplan, and PowerPrep). If you're perusing here again, Mono - what's your take on taking practice tests close to the exam? I made a thread about this but haven't gotten a response... Real test is Friday, and I don't want to burn my brain out, but I also feel compelled to keep studying like a mad woman!

How do you blow through questions so quickly! That's maybe what I get in in a week - a very very good week!

Ho-lee COW! Congratulations on that stellar writing score!!! And thanks for posting!

Oh boy, where have I been getting my information? I could swear I read somewhere that it's wise to go visit the school and the area first to see if you'd even be OK with living there, and whether the school is what you expected. I have a geographic bias though - I can only go to places that aren't too far from where my family and I currently live, and while these schools are definitely not "few hour" drives away, they're also not far enough away to need plane tickets. I went out to one school that was convenient during an already-planned road trip. The three other schools though, I'm making specific out-of-pocket plans to go out there and meet professors and students, and even sit in on a couple classes. One of these schools specifically recommends right on their website, visiting the campus before applying. Another recommended I visit if I could, in an email response after inquiring. Almost every single professor I'm going to visit has sent me very positive responses and shown what I believe to be genuine enthusiasm about meeting me during those visits (I have an unusual background). I don't get the sense that any of the schools thinks I'm "desperate" even though I reached out to them in a rather forward manner to say, "Hey, can I visit the department and meet some folks some time?" Granted, I'm not a conventional kind of gal... I wouldn't take my advice if you want to play it safe. And I can definitely see the merits of the argument that one could come off as "desperate" for making long-haul, self-pay campus visits. I guess I also feel strongly about making sure these places are right for me before I bother with an entire application package. My rationale here is, why apply in the first place if the school - the actual school and the actual humans in it - doesn't feel like a good fit? Wastes their time, my time, my letter writers' time.

I agree with lyrehc. Is ranking the only reason you want to switch?

Unfortunately all three - but keep in mind this was for university-wide funding, not the funding that would come from within the department itself. From what I've seen, TA and RA funding for classes and projects in a department, comes from the department. At this particular school (also bear in mind this was just one school), it was the fellowships and scholarships which came from a university-wide pool of funding.

One program administrator I spoke to said that unless your GRE scores are in the tippy top top (90th percentiles and above), you won't get funding from the university-wide pools, because those have to be based on more "objective" criteria - and numbers in the form of GRE scores provide just that. This same administrator also told me that departmental funding has a lot more leeway in terms of overlooking GRE scores, presumably because it's a much smaller pool, and whomever makes the decision is only accountable to the rest of the department (made up of people who want more good people, not just good GRE test-takers), and not the entire school's leadership (who is accountable to even higher powers-that-be with possibly even less insight). This wasn't a comm program mind you, but another social science program. Hahaha.

Just for clarification, I meant the word "crack" in the sense that I'd look at it today... not hack-crack it open... Sorry to disappoint

"dead piece of tree"

Not good to send them your SOP in case that person is on the admissions committee. Can give the impression of impropriety. Unless they specifically tell you they're not, and that they want to see your SOP.

Hmmm, none of my letter writers wanted to see my ACTUAL SOP. They just wanted to know what my intentions were and then all the things fuzzylogician just said. Is it standard practice to send the LOR writers your SOP? ...yikes! I'm way behind if so!

Yeah there's some new thing where ETS lets you pick and choose the scores you send - check out the ETS website and it explains it. They have some silly proprietary name for it, like ScoreSelect or something. Also, you should check with the specific programs you're applying to and what their own policies are on multiple scores. Some average them. Some take the highest of each section. Some take the highest combined. Some take the most recent.... etc. We're in similar boats! I took GRE 2009 and did about the same as you, and I'm retaking this week. But yeah, ETS lets you choose which scores to send, but I can't recall how to do it, so take a look.

I'm no expert on things, but I can give you my opinion for what it's worth (how would you know..!) In general, from what I've read both on here and on program websites, it's best to first off have academic letters of reference, rather than professional/employment letters. This could be totally different for your specific program though, especially if what you're doing is a terminal master's with an assumption of non-academic employment afterwards. Secondly, it would just make me wonder - do you have no other professors or academic folks from your undergrad who would recommend you? If not, why not? (Maybe no big deal, but I might wonder this). If you're stuck and really have no other choice, you might want to help your two letter writers from the same office not overlap themselves too much - make sure they cover different aspects of why you're awesome ...Wait, you are awesome, aren't you?

Have you seen that ETS just came out with a book of ACTUAL practice questions? Looks like it came out in August. I ordered an electronic copy - I'll let you know if it's any good - probably crack it open today.

Haha Guvut. Congrats on cracking 160, on both counts!

Hi Pedanticist! Thanks for sharing. Stellar GPA's! Your degrees are in the same/similar field? Congrats on the high writing score, too! How did you narrow your programs down? Interesting to see someone else applying to two different programs. Good luck!

Thanks Monochrome!

I saw it, thanks! I don't know, there's that one whole thread here on Practice tests scores vs. Actual scores, and it sounds like discrepancies are pretty common, both ways, and including for the adaptive Kaplan tests (which I'm using). Congrats on being done with that! Must feel so good. I can't wait to get it behind me.

Yay! Gives me hope! Thanks timberlake!!!

One of the programs I'm applying to specifically states that you need to cite sources in your SOP! Sounds like every school is different. This was excellent - many thanks to the OP!

Hi there! Doesn't look like there are many of us. And all a little reluctant to post stats...? Well, I'll kick it off: 3.8 undergrad GPA equivalent (I graduated from a school that did not have traditional grades...yikes) Combined 313 GRE from 2009 (1290 on the old scale) and 4.5 AWA Retaking the GRE this week but my hopes aren't too high as I've been doing not so great on the practice tests. My bachelor's was not in communication, but focused somewhat on cross-cultural communication and understanding. From a small relatively unknown school. My interests are a little broad, but I want to look at cross-boundary collaboration and communication, however that boundary is manifested (culture, religion, organization, nation, time, space - anything!). I love language, so could see myself doing discourse analysis and other types of linguistic analysis. Also huge on ethnography. At UCSB, I have a chance to study with someone in a very specific field for which there aren't many experts in the USA, hence the Religious Studies program application there. I feel weird about applying for two different programs at one school, which is why I'm not also applying to Comm there. It's an absolute requirement for me to get a TA-ship or RA-ship or equivalent. Financially, it's a must (won't divulge the personal details). But I also quit my last (very excellent) job to become a teacher, and it's what I want to be doing, so I'd like to pursue my passion right off the bat and really grow some invaluable skills and improve my teaching. Good luck to the others on here! Would love to hear from others!