[STOP FREAKING OUT: these programs are not as competitive as you think]

Honestly, this post is so true. I applied to only a single program, and got offered full tuition + stipend funding. It's more than enough for me to live on as well.

 

I don't even consider myself a particularly impressive applicant. 

[Grad. School Supplies?]

Well this was an informative thread. I'll probably end up grabbing one of those livescribe smartpens and a cheap Android tablet/keyboard combination thing. No need for any $800 surface pros or lenovo yogas or anything like that.

[Going from a good to a great GRE score?]

There's no need to try to improve beyond 164V and 158Q. Maybe you could benefit from getting above 160Q if you plan on going into a field that uses a lot of math, but 164v/158q is not "just good." I'm pretty sure that's almost 90th percentile for both tests..

 

[how close is ETS GRE practice test to their real test?]

I thought they were pretty similar. I did about as well on the actual GRE (166v, 152q, 5AW) as I would have expected to based on the practice tests.

[GRE Score Posting Times - Business Days or Calendar Days?]

Should be calendar days, not business. I said this because yesterday was exactly only one week since I took the test, and my scores came in last night. If it was business days, then that would mean my scores came in within the first 5 days. It's still pretty early in terms of calendar days as well, but at least it's closer to the 10-15 day window usually given.

[Don't take on debt]

9 hours ago, MD guy said:

Depends on the school. Berkeley has lots of TAships available but apparently they're competitive. Same with Michigan. I think in general the larger the school's undergrad college, the more opportunities there are going to be, but competition is always a problem. Add in picky professors and scheduling issues, I wouldn't bank on getting an assistantship for financial aid, but it's certainly available and possible.

Also it's almost impossible to not take on any debt unless 1) you go to WWS or 2) have family money to pay. The point is to get as little as possible and be reasonable with expectations, as well as keeping an open mind for less high reputation schools that might give more money.

Thanks for the insight. I guess I'll just end up putting in the apps and seeing how it goes.

[Don't take on debt]

Not taking on debt seems like something that is easier said than done. Are assistantships something that we see at the Masters level frequently or no? I'll be putting in some applications either at the end of the year or maybe early 2017. If I can figure out a way to get an MPA with little or no debt then I'd be all for it.

[Did I make a colossal mistake? MPP -> PhD]

53 minutes ago, shadowzoid said:

@fuzzylogician Thanks, that advice helps. I think you are probably right. Right now I think I will use this MPP as a way to understand non-academic research and industry jobs, and see if I will like it. In undergrad I mostly focused on my studies (even in the summer, I just sat around reading books and papers), but I think I will plan to get an internship for every semester so I get a lot of exposure to different careers. I suppose I will also balance between academic and professional networking, so that I still keep a door open into recs for a PhD application. To this effect, I hope to take at least 2 PhD-level courses so that I understand what a PhD will be like. I will try to visit all of my professors' office hours and be more open to emailing alumnae for informational interviews (something I have never felt comfortable doing). I will also focus on taking courses in methodology, since to me it seems like I would be an asset doing research if I have technical skills to offer. (I'm writing this paragraph more for myself as a statement of my goals). 

@Nightly and @fuzzylogician I want to say something about this age thing. I don't want people to think I harbor an age-ist bias. You will just have to trust me that I am telling the truth, but I developed this view from informally reading forums and anecdotes of academics. For instance, Albert Einstein said, "a person who has not yet made his great contribution to science by age thirty never will." Paul Dirac wrote in a poem about physicists,"He's better dead than living still//when he is past his thirtieth year." In his blog with Richard Posner, the late Gary Becker argued that academia is a young person's game as young people produce more innovative scholarly work (in an article arguing that we should make it easier to force old academics to retire). And you may say to ignore these men, but I hope its understandable that it's hard to ignore the words of those at the top of a career you may want. 

My fear is not that I won't become a superstar. I couldn't care less about that. My fear is that I'm wasting my prime years. My fear isn't that I can't get a PhD - I know I can - but that I won't be as productive getting it later. And I value productivity from internal validation - it makes me happy to get 'aha' moments even if no one finds out I did. But I understand that many people outside academia have gone on to do great things, and so perhaps that's the mentality I should focus on. 

Jesus, dude.. We live in an old folks' world these days. Everyone who is anyone is old as hell, from politics to academia. You should do something about that massive chip on your shoulder/all that insecurity of yours.

[GRE Prep]

I never took the SAT, but I doubt the vocab would be the same as GRE. The two tests are targeted at people with very different levels of education. From what I understand, the GRE verbal is trickier and more convoluted.

Anyway, I took the GRE the other day and got a 166(96th percentile) on the verbal portion. Two months ago, I purchased a Kaplan GRE study book and answered all the practice questions on it. Then I went through the 10 practice sets on the internet that came with the book. I did about 5 of the quantitative practice sets, and 2 or 3 of the full-length practice exams. I did this while also taking classes, so I'd say you should be fine, assuming you generally do pretty well on tests like I do.

[GRE Test Scores]

41 minutes ago, marycaryne said:

My quant and verbal were posted right away, but the AW score remained blank until it was posted a week later.

Wait, really? That's kind of concerning for me, because I did my GRE on the 10th and it says "absent/scores unavailable" like DBear's does..

[Any reputable online grad schools?]

Have you looked into Penn State? They have been doing distance learning for a long time.

[GRE Test Scores]

sjoh197 is right that your unofficial verbal and quant scores show up immediately after the test. Thank god for that, because I just took mine on the 10th, and I couldn't imagine having to wait two weeks to learn how I did on those two sections. It's bad enough not knowing how well I did on the AW section, especially since people on this board seem to be saying that they do poorly even if they expect to do well.