Apogeee

See if there is someone from your time in college who will advise you. You're going to need LOR.

The sport has little to no impact on your application. Your writing score is a little low. The lack of experience and research is somewhat problematic, but not unusually so. Overall, your portfolio sounds reasonable. Ask your advisor; perhaps there is some work you can do now to bolster your portfolio. Good luck.

Did your former advisor give you a reason for suggesting that you delay? Before you do anything else, have an honest meeting with your advisor, in person, so you can find out what's up. Your advisor's reason could give you some insight. But without that letter, your application package isn't that competitive, and, as you know, it's not always just a letter that they have to provide. Sometimes there are other online hoops they have to jump through. You want this person on your side.

Test anxiety is a terrible thing. Sorry that's happening to you. How about using the materials on the ETS site? If tech support isn't readily visible on a site, chances are, it's just a scam. Genuine web sites have some way to contact them in the event of a problem.

Try to maintain a balance. If your grades suddenly nosedive, that is a bad sign in an application. Discuss research possibilities and ask about the work/study balance. Your advisor should help you with this. Are you taking a GRE or some other standardized test for grad school?

Why don't you contact the bank and change the address on your account? You don't have to close an account because it has an old address. I'm not really sure, from what you said, why you haven't done this yet.

Exactly right, Crimson Wife! This is an important distinction. If someone can't get at least a 5 on an "inane topic that ETS has devised" how can they possibly engage in effective business writing? The same types of analysis that go into writing on the inane topic will improve the writing on the reports that a professional is expected to produce. Nothing we learn is wasted. I, too, have seen the writing that some people send out to parents, administrators, and clients. Learning how to write well behooves us all. Thank you for pointing that out.

I don't think that this will cause you as much of a problem as you fear. Try listening to American accents on youtube and try to imitate them to help you to be more easily understood. Slow your speech a little bit. Here is a college professor discussing accent training. This seems to be a university lecture that was recorded. After the first couple of minutes, her presentation gets going. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkQ7lwEWeGA Do you have a friend you can talk with on Facetime or Skype? Perhaps you can help them with their accent in your language - half and half. A colleague of mine is learning German. She is watching television shows in German, sometimes with subtitles, sometimes without.

Jolie717 makes an important point. Grad school is too important to put all of your time, energy, and cash into test-prep for one test: even the GRE. A great idea is to thoroughly learn the material. Then you not only have it on test day, but forever. The ETS website has exam guides and practice tests. The practice tests at ETS give a good approximation of what you will need to do on test day, which can be grueling. On that day you have to ignore the ick factor of wearing the headphones that have been on countless other heads, and the fact that you are being monitored on a camera. You can't even have your own pencil! After you work with all of that material, if you need something else, go and get books. An experienced, professional tutor is a good investment right from the beginning. Also, don't skimp on writing preparation. One of the major tasks of grad school is professional writing. Try to get that score to at least a 5.

Why don't you use all of the resources on the ETS website before you go and buy anything? And perhaps your local library has a GRE prep book you can borrow. It's not something you need to buy.

Did you write to their tech support? Did you try a different browser? What did their help section say?

They look pretty similar without knowing the percentiles. You could send all of your scores, or the most recent ones. Did the percentile scores change? What department are you applying to? Anyway, wait for the writing results before you make up your mind.

From everyone I know who has applied to grad schools in the last 10 years, it's not always fair. Sometimes the most brilliant people with the greatest portfolio don't get in, or they barely squeak in. And then someone else who has a kind of mediocre seeming portfolio has 8 acceptances. Now factor in "impostor syndrome" and the whole process is toxic! It's really a numbers game: the more schools you apply to, the better your chances of getting in. And yes, of course a strong portfolio is desirable. That personal statement is something that is entirely within your control.

I agree with everything the posters above have said. Your experience isn't unusual. It doesn't seem to matter the discipline. Just finding out that the research you do winds up being shaped by the work of your advisors can really be a difficult wake-up call. Somewhere along the line, undergraduate advisors neglect to explain what graduate school would really be like. But now you know. If I were you, I'd vote for that second choice, and finish your degree. If you have professors you trust whom you can really talk to, you may be able to ask them about their own experience in research. I think you will find that most of them were able to find value in their projects, even when those projects weren't their initial favorite. Passion is intrinsic: it comes from you, not the project you're working on. Bring your passion to what you are doing, rather than trying to extract it from the project. It's a different mindset.

I'm iffy on that third writer. Is there a professor who knows you better in mainly academic professor-mentor to student relationship, not social?

I think you are on the low end of average scores for writing for Stanford, but still in the range of acceptances. You could consider taking the test again if you are planning to take a writing course or work with a tutor to help study. If I were you, I'd take a course and take it again, but I'm not you, and that's important! Great job on your math score.

You have made a good start here. My suggestion is that you take a course in college writing as part of your GRE preparation. I have written some comments about areas in which you can focus your initial efforts. If you are not looking for feedback, please ignore my comments. What is your thesis statement? It belongs in the first paragraph. Write a strong thesis statement and then connect all of the points you make throughout the essay to that thesis statement. You have to actually make a point. You have said a lot of words, but you haven't given any evidence for any of your assertions. Do not use any words you cannot spell. Also, choose either British spelling or American spelling, and remain consistent. You should work to improve your ability to use the grammatical concept of number. For example the standard expressions are, "one of the best things" and "It has helped humans". This problem comes up in several places throughout your essay. Also, it will help you to investigate the concept of when to use a comma vs. a period. "Technology has brought the best of the human race"... What does this mean? Explain and give examples. "It is almost impossible for humans to extract the necessary information"... What does this mean? What are core tasks? What are unnecessary tasks? Give examples. "Cutting the crap" is colloquial. Use of colloquialism is not appropriate in GRE writing. Nor is it appropriate at any other stage in the graduate admissions process. Find another way to express your idea. "One example of this may running of" ...Reword this, and explain what you meant. "Technology helps human in connecting and experiencing the things which might be beyond traditional connection such as we can listen to President's speech on our TV sets at our home instead of being physically present at the venue and grasping. " This needs to be rewritten. "Technology helps in openning a entire new world to us like cosmos, genetics which we were completely oblivious to." Rewrite this. What do you mean by "cosmos" here? Don't end the sentence with a preposition. And what does the whole section mean? Explain your ideas, give examples, and give supporting evidence. "Overdependence on technology for even basic needs can make human lose ability to perform certain tasks like, with the overdependence" Reword this. "like, with" is problematic. Do not repeat words. "they are not only saving human life through it but also making" Reword this. Good luck on your GRE. When do you plan to take the test?

You make a good point that I should have clarified. You are not giving all of these reasons to your writers of recommendations. You are using this to determine your actual strengths. If you don't have 5 concrete examples, it's not a strength so much as something you would like to see become a strength. As SouthernDrawl mentioned, you aren't going to send that list to your writers. One from each of those would be good. Cura ut valeas. Laura

For each strength on your list, list 5 examples of specific times you used this strength. In other words, connect each strength on your list to at least 5 accomplishments. Weed out those items on your list for which it's harder to come up with concrete examples, or for which the examples are vague.

If your GPA is lower than 3.0, but has been demonstrably higher in the last two years of your college work, you can consider devoting a sentence or two to what you did to overcome personal obstacles. If the GPA is higher than 3.0, don't draw attention to it. Don't justify yourself. Don't make up excuses that seem plausible. Just tell the truth when asked. Don't use self-deprecation. Don't dwell on the negative. Writer's block has no place in your personal statement, as it must all be a hundred percent true. You have to be the self you introduce in this letter - don't write about someone else.

I hope you are completely recovered. Graduate school is a high pressure situation. You have to decide when you are strong enough after your health problems. I hope that you are working with the counseling services personnel at your school, who can point you to resources to help you navigate this part of your academic career. Have you talked over your application list with your advisor? What's the input from that person? Don't try to do this alone. It's not necessary and they will want to help you. How strong is your personal statement? Would a year of postbacc put you in a stronger position? Applying to graduate school is a numbers game: talk to your advisor and identify 10 schools to which you should apply based on your strengths and proclivities. I never understand why people with good GPAs call them bad. Everyone doesn't have a 4.0 GPA. Someone is pulling your leg if you think that's the way it is. Same for GRE scores. What do you seek to do with your degree after you get there? What would you do if you decide not to seek further education opportunities at this time? But to your initial question, yes, you are worth it. Apply, if that is how to achieve your goals. You have not caused irreparable damage.

Well, if you're able to study in a materially different way than you studied the last two times, it could be worth taking it again. Your chances probably most depend on the overall picture compared to the other applications, and there's no way to know who they will be. Do a great job on the rest of your application package, including your personal statement and letters of recommendation!

If you can hire a tutor, I would do that. If you can't, I'd go to the GRE site and study all of the free materials available there, and take all of the practice tests. Good luck!

Do these programs have suggested scores for GRE? I think your answer will depend in part on that. I can't really give you statistics. Have you gone to the results page and looked at the scores of people who have gotten accepted to these institutions? IJust curious, how did you prepare for your second GRE? How have you been studying for it in the last year?

Actually, that's the way they used present the adaptive test in the old system. Now it's still adaptive, but not the way I described. Here's a more accurate answer, from their site, "The Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning measures are section-level adaptive. This means the computer selects the second operational section of a measure based on your performance on the first section. Within each section, all questions contribute equally to the final score. For each of the two measures, a raw score is computed. The raw score is the number of questions you answered correctly. The raw score is converted to a scaled score through a process known as equating. The equating process accounts for minor variations in difficulty among the different test editions as well as the differences in difficulty introduced by the section-level adaptation. Thus a given scaled score for a particular measure reflects the same level of performance regardless of which second section was selected and when the test was taken."