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Hi rgreen, I'm also applying this cycle. I won't give you a number that is "too many", but simply say that I am having my recommenders submit a lot (and I mean a lot) of letters. I'm already applying for seven or eight different (inter)national funding sources, plus a relatively long list of programs. My recommenders, since I let them know in advance that I was planning to apply to a large number of programs, are fine with it. So, communication is key either way! If you're not sure, I would talk with them about it.

I'm interested in learning more about university-wide fellowships at different schools. I'm applying for external funding (things like the NSF GRFP), but if that falls through, I'm interested in how internal funding usually shakes out. I have a couple different questions that I've listed below: Is there any good source of aggregate data in terms of GRE/GPA/etc. for people winning fellowships at different school?Are the top students in the university, independent of department, generally awarded these fellowships, or do they ration these awards within different departments?Related to the question above, but how important is a department's ranking in comparing students at the university level? (I ask a question like this because Physics GRE Subject score is important for admissions to a program but obviously not a number that is common to all students across the university.)Any other information regarding internal fellowships, or any answers (however confident, even if it's just speculation from current students) to the above would be very much appreciated. Any information helps!

Wait, sorry, but I don't see how either of the two "takeaways" necessarily follow from the test being adaptive. That being said, you're right: everyone knows it's adaptive, but that wasn't my point. My point with #1 was that you can't trust Kaplan's book questions to give an idea of the difficulty you'll see if you're in the 165+ range for quant, since these questions are at the level of a "normal" question. I'm saying that I didn't see a single question in the Kaplan book I had that was anywhere near the level of questions in my adapted section. My point with #2 was that knowing how you're scoring and what your adapted sections will look like can help spot the experimental, which (on both the practice and actual exam I took) was at an average difficulty (i.e. noticeably different from the hard questions from my adapted sections). I suppose I could and should have been clearer that this wasn't meant to be terribly insightful for someone who has been actually studying hard for the GRE; this was my experience in taking the exam after devoting ~20 hours of preparation using only materials that were freely available to me. Someone who has been studying for months out of multiple different books and used multiple different testing software won't learn anything from what I've said above, but someone for whom the subject test is more important and the GRE General was an afterthought might.

I used Kaplan's Premier GRE 2016 book/software (provided by a research program I did over the summer). Did practice problems out of the book and took one computer-based practice test through this software. Practice test score: 167 Q / 159 V (QVQVQ) Actual score (3 October): 168 Q / 165 V / ¿AWA? (VQVQV) Hours studied: ≤20 (I was spending 6 to 12 hrs/day for 5 weeks on the Physics GRE, so I neglected to pay much attention to the General) Observations: Taking at least one practice exam of the type you'll see on exam day (computer or paper based), especially for someone preoccupied with studying for subject tests (e.g. math and/or physics, where the subject is much more important than the general), is crucial. This may seem obvious, but I have friends who have tried to take it cold because they couldn't find authentic practice exams. Understand that, assuming you're 1) taking the computer-based and 2) aiming for a high score, your second half of the exam will be hard! I actually took a bit of a mental break on my experimental section because it noticeably easier. If that was my actual second verbal section, then my score would have been too low to report anyway. Sure enough, a harder verbal came in the 6th section and I knew it was genuine and to focus on it. Math questions in study books ≠ math questions on 2nd half of the GRE (for anyone in the ~165+ range, that is). This was the biggest thing the practice test taught me. I took a few paper-based practice sets out of the Kaplan book and would get 39/40 or 40/40 in roughly 1/2 or 3/4 of the allowed time. Your test day experience will be very different from these practice sets if you're shooting for a perfect quant, and you need to be mentally prepared for this. (I gave myself a little mental pep talk before the 2nd math section of my actual exam, because I knew this section would be challenging.)This might be a matter of personal preference, but take all the allotted time on a given section! If you finish answering and checking your answers with ≤5 minutes left (e.g. on the first quant and verbal sections), don't skip the remaining time. If you're sure of your answers, take a break and just relax. I was one of the last people done when I took the exam, presumably because everyone else rushed through. I don't know why you would willingly force a brisker pace upon yourself – if anything, use the remaining time to review the questions a second or third or fourth time, rather than forfeiting it. Takeaways: Second-half quant questions for top-end scorers are much harder than questions I found in review books or online.Knowing what difficulty your second-half questions will be will help you spot (and take advantage of) the experimental.