Satori

It's basically an intelligence test... so I don't see them getting rid of it. It'd just be nice if it were more accuracte and less subject to a few lucky or unlucky guesses.

No, that doesn't follow... it's like any other intelligence test. There's some variability in the scores, but ultimately, it's hard to raise your score above a certain mark no matter how much you prepare for any given person. This is why they say it's unlikely that you'll see an increase of over 100 points... because that would make your two scores statistically different. And that's unlikely for an individual.

There's actually a lot of literature out there about this... I'm not just guessing or making it up. The analogy and reading comp questions are perfect examples of the type of questions you'd see on traditional intelligence tests. It's no coincidence that you see the same thing on the GRE. And what is the best overall indicator of intelligence with language? Vocabulary. So that's a big component too. Sure, you can study for it. And you'll improve. But the colleges like this too since that measures intelligence + motivation... which is also a key characteristic. So it's a win-win for them.

I don't know about you, but I've taken the SAT, ACT, GRE and GMAT at various times in my career. And my scores are very close.. varying to about, well, the delta that I mentioned above for the GRE.

Well, apparently yesterday was rejection letter day for those that applied to Emory's Institute for Liberal Arts, the interdisciplinary Ph.D. program. Though I was among them, I have some consolation to offer everyone else who was rejected yesterday. When I met with the head of the department last year, he told me that they had over 100 applications for 3-5 spots. Doing the math, that is (along with Emory's philosophy department and GDR) the worst acceptance rate of any department I've ever applied to.

The stats that I've seen of the people who get in vary so much that I know it's not just a matter of a particular GRE cutoff or what have you. My impression is that this has recently become a more competitive program - perhaps the most competitive for this type of program?

Anyway, I saw a lot of other folks who were rejected along with me yesterday... and since I had some inside information that may make everyone feel a little less jilted, I wanted to try and help

best of luck to everyone