DrZoidberg

I would really appreciate hearing opinions on this as I am in a kind of similar situation (not to hijack your thread, sorry!). I know I will be offered one position at a non-US university in November (not sure of the deadline), but I also want to apply for US programs, which I will hear back from much later. Are universities generally understanding and accommodating of this situation, or is kind of tough luck and you have to gamble with it? I am usually of the opinion that being honest and open is the best way to go, but I don't really know what the norm is here. Also, if it is okay to say yes to one school until something else comes along, as J_Phil suggests.

I think, in principle, you get something like 600 questions in each of verbal and quant, and then you can create as many practice tests from those as you want. That is, for each practice test you will use 40 of your quant questions and 40 of your verbal questions. In principle you can create ~15 practice tests.

I am in the natural sciences, so I may not be able to relate completely to your question. However, I think an important question you should be asking yourself is, what do you want to do/study/work with day in day out? A motivated application to a program that is maybe a little unusual given your background is going to be much more convincing than an unmotivated application to a program that was just the most obvious fit, but not something you are excited about. I think it is a better idea to start thinking about what you would really like to do, what excites you. Write it all down, even if it seems silly or unrealistic. When you have an idea about what you want, which subjects/methodologies really turn you on, then you can start thinking about how you can get there, which qualifications you have that might support you. Look at programs that have that right mixture of what you are into, and where your background can be an advantage even if it is from a slightly different field. And then write an application that reflects that motivation and focus. I changed fields between my BSc and my MSc, and now I am applying for PhDs in areas that are not obvious extensions of the (formal) qualifications of my MSc. It has worked out great, and sometimes to my advantage, because in order to change fields I thought pretty long and hard about it, which means that I switched fields to something that I was really passionate about. The motivation + whatever tools that could be transferred from my previous degree made me a very interesting candidate. Good luck!

I really found this thread helpful when I was studying for my GRE, and now that I have completed it I thought I would share my experiences in case anyone else might use it for their preparation. I am a non-native English speaker, as well as a physics/engineering major. So mainly I thought the maths part would be easy enough but I dreaded the verbal. Initially I studied a mix of the ETS Official Guide and Manhattan's 5lb book, shifting between the maths and verbal sections. Just while studying those two books I took the following practice exams; Q V ETS Paper test #1 162 156 ETS Paper test #2 164 163 Kaplan Free test 164 152 Princeton Test 6 161 156 Manhattan Free test 159 158 Manhattan Test #2 159 158 ETS PP Test #1 164 157 After this I realised I needed to do something to boost my verbal score, as I was hoping to get at least 160. So I went ahead and bought the Magoosh premium, and I hate to sound like I am advertising for them, but that really made a world of difference to me. The video explanations were extremely helpful, in particular on the verbal sections I could develop a few strategies and generally felt a little more confident. So I did some more practice tests. Manhattan Test #3 161 162 Manhattan Test #4 161 162 Magoosh PT #1 165 159 Manhattan Test#5 164 156 Three days before my test I downloaded the Magoosh flashcard app and do what you are probably not supposed to do; I spent two whole days just before my test memorizing 1000 words. As in relentlessly going over them until I knew the exact definition of them all. And then I did another powerprep test; ETS PP Test #2 163 166 I was a little surprised by this, and thought it was great but probably not particularly representative of my verbal score, seeing as I had never scored this high. Anyway, I studied some more flash cards and going into the test I had Q163/V160 as my minimum targets. Actual GRE 164 168 I was hoping to get a slightly higher maths score, but to be honest I think I was a little arrogant in thinking I was an engineering major and the maths should be easy, so even when studying I kept doing the same thing and didn't really bother to identify what I was doing wrong. On the other hand I was so worried about my verbal score that I scrutinized every question until I understood what the GRE is actually trying to test. Studying those 1000 flashcards over two days is probably the best thing I did. A surprising number of the words came up in the test and I had no serious doubts about my answers. As for the different systems, the Manhattan online tests were only good for testing maths, as it was harder than the actual GRE, but still had similar questions. The verbal has nothing to do with what you will meet on test day, and they use low-frequency words which would be pointless to try to learn. As I said, I thought Magoosh was really good and if I did it again I would buy the package and download the flashcards from the very start. The actual test was not as difficult as I thought, although I did get three maths sections so it is hard for me to tell which ones I was being tested on.