MrsGrad

Hey I'm not alone!! Sounds like we're going down sorta similar paths. I do appreciate that you're older than me, it makes me feel less like an outlier! :-) Perhaps the one advantage you have over me is that you're staying in your industry. I'm not sure my extensive networking experience is going to help me in health education or gerontology, but you never know! I would agree that the experience navigating through a work environment helps a lot. Teaching is a good choice for you considering your profession. The IT/IS field has to be one of the worst when it comes to agesim, especially when it comes to pay. Please do hire the 20 year old who fixes computers in his basement over me - it's not like the years and years of experience are worth more than 30 grand a year. I don't even take calls from head hunters anymore. That's great about your daughter. Mine is still in high school, but when she graduates she'll attend the same university that I am, so we may have a couple of years together. I think it's been good for her to see me do this; even if she is in her self-absorbed high school phase, I think she sees what I'm doing. I believe what we're doing-planning a second career-will become more common in the coming years. My husband's daughter swears she will love her job for the rest of her life. Ah youth! Once upon a time being in charge of a large network and overseeing the IT functions for a company were exciting and new and I swore I'd love it forever. I really don't know what I'm going to do when I finish, I have several ideas but nothing concrete, but I do know that today when I got up to go to work I didn't feel trapped. I do feel a lot of empathy for the young students. I'm a little behind you on the time line, but I also remember the day when you could work hard and move up the corporate ladder. How scary it must be to start out today! Getting older has its own baggage, but it's a lot easier to think about career planning when you know that your mortgage is almost paid up and your kids are about to leave the nest!

See if this helps: 1. On a piece of paper, make two columns: pros and cons. On the pros side write down all of the reasons one might agree with the position taken. On the cons side write why someone might disagree with the position. Pay special attention to the rational that is given for the position. Pick the side that you think you can best argue - this is a super important point - you don't have to agree with what you write on a personal level, pick the side that you can write about, not what you believe to be "right". 2. Order the items on your list (pros or cons your choice) in order of best argument to worst. Pick the top three (or two, but no fewer than two and no more than three). 3. Order the items on the remaining side (the one you didn't pick) and select the very best one on the list. This will be your concession toward the end of your essay. 4. Write your essay: The opening paragraph very, very briefly restates the position (without using the position statement verbatim and hopefully in an interesting way). You will then state your position. The second, third and fourth paragraphs discuss your arguments to strengthen your point (the items on your chosen list). The fifth paragraph gives that one good concession point, which hopefully ends with a reason why you can either dismiss or mitigate the concession. The final paragraph summarizes what you've said and offers a clear ending to the essay so that it doesn't feel like you just ran out of time and stopped typing. Also, only use a GRE word if you're sure you know the meaning and how it will be applied in the context of your essay by the reader - example:doldrums. Yes, technically the definition matches what you were trying to say, but most people use the term to mean a lack of energy like "the doldrums of winter". You're not necessarily wrong, but you kind of are wrong if that makes any sense. If you want to try this one again, post it here and we'll see if the steps above help make your essay more clear.

You should try to get that AW score up. When I signed up for my test, ETS sent me a link to an essay evaluation site (http://www.ets-cls.org/ya/GreEssayRating/gre.htm). If you log in with the email address you used to register for your test, you will be given the opportunity to read sample essays and guess what score each one receives. It was very enlightening to see what essays rated high and low scores, and really helped me understand what to focus on when writing my own practice essays (and eventually the real ones). I would have to say that this exercise was every bit as valuable as the Magoosh materials and even writing practice essays because I had a feel for what the examiners are looking for. The other thing that really helped me: I printed out the entire list of potential essay topics (they're all available on the ETS website). I went through the list and thought about each topic and whether I could mentally compose a quick outline of an essay. The topics that I struggled with were the ones that I focused on when writing practice essays. I was shocked on test day to find that one of my essays was a topic that I had practiced, and greatly relieved that I had given it some forethought.

Hey there! I was wondering if there are members who would like to talk about the experience of being an older graduate student. I earned by BA in History in 1995 and spent the next 20 years working as an IT Manager. It's been a good career, but no longer offers the same challenges and interest for me, so I decided to craft a new second career for myself. I completed my Master's degree this spring as well as a graduate certificate in Contemporary Gerontological Practice. As an undergraduate I went to school full-time as well as working a full-time job and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. This time around I not only took classes and worked full-time, I also have a family and all of the obligations that go along with that and still graduated with a 4.0. I was lucky to have some really terrific advisors who encouraged me to keep going, so I start my doctorate in Health Education this fall. As an older student I find myself in a very strange place both in and out of the classroom. My friends (and especially my husband's friends who are older than me) find it very strange that I would want to go back to school and create a new career at this point in my life. I'm "only" 48 so I have a lot of years ahead of myself that will involve work, and the thought of spending all of that time in IT makes me want to cry. I work for a manufacturing company and my co-workers have no interest in what I'm doing - not that they're hostile, they just don't care - so it's this whole thing that consumes my life but that I never speak of to people I spend 40+ hours a week with. It is a very humbling experience to be a seasoned professional who is "The Expert" in the workplace, but the grasshopper in the classroom. In my career I wrote a national training program for a major insurance provider, and in the classroom I had to learn how to write a literature review and deal with the eight thousand edits that are entailed in a thesis. It was a good experience and it taught me not to be cocky (or at least I hope that I learned that lesson!), but switching between the roles of expert and novice can be exhausting. On the plus side, I have all of that "getting married and raising a family" stuff out of the way. I have a good, stable, well-paying job with supportive bosses so I know I won't have Raman Noodles for dinner every night as a student. I have a strong support system in my husband and daughter and even my parents. I pay for my classes out of my own pocket without any student loans so I'm not indebted to anyone. Yes, I have to save, save, save, but I don't have to worry about funding or soul-crushing debt. I have lots and lots of time to write and work on assignments. On the negative side, I have a full-time job so I can't take a GA and get the experience that younger students might on campus. I have a shorter time-frame to work with, so my end goals have to be simpler and more realistic. I can't relocate, so I didn't have the same options for applying to different programs (although I'm lucky that a top ten program in my chosen field is offered at the University one mile from my workplace). It's both scary and liberating to be an older student. I'm doing this because I want to, not because I have to. I'm doing it on my own terms and I'm having fun. There's a good chance I'm doing all of this for nothing and will die of old age in my server room, but if that happens at least I gave it a shot. Are there any others out there like me? If so, what do you find to be the best and worst thing about being an older student?

I earned my Master's degree (and an graduate certificate) online through my local university. I work about a mile away, so I could go on campus when I wanted to see my advisor, but otherwise everything was online. My program was just as rigorous as an in-class course of study, including my thesis (my advisors were very demanding). I have a full-time job and family, so it worked great for me. My doctorate program will be mostly in-class, but some will be online as well. It really depends on the student and the program.

This is a pretty good essay. I might have also mentioned potential demographic differences. If Prunty County has twice as many drivers as Butler county, or if Prunty County has more county highways and Butler county has more state highways, the comparison is inappropriate.

I am horrible at math, so the quant section gave me the most stress (thankfully it's not important for my program). I found the study aids that helped me the most were the Magoosh strategy videos. I did watch the subject videos, but I'll be honest, I'm never going to be any good at quadratic equations, so it probably made little difference. The lessons that taught me how to tell instantly whether a number is divisible by three or six or nine were really helpful, and saved me time on the calculator. Similarly, the double and half rule was great. Not only were these lessons that helped with the GRE, they are lessons that I now use in my every day life, so that's a bonus! Finally, it really helped to realize that the quant section is less about math and more about logic. When I found myself spending too much time on long division, I stopped and re-evaluated my understanding of the problem. The GRE isn't about whether I can do long division, so it was a good indicator that I was going down the wrong path.

Your response is rather short, although a good essay doesn't have to be unnecessarily wordy. I don't think you addressed the prompts as they were presented. When designing your essay, read the prompt and make sure you completed the tasks that as they are presented. "Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain the reason for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position." The first paragraph should state your position in the argument. Do you fundamentally agree with the statement, but only if the complications are overcome? Or do you disagree with the position altogether? Your opening statement is not very clear. The next two or three paragraphs should support your position by describing specific circumstances where the sharing of treatment information would be helpful or not helpful. Your second paragraph makes an error in assuming that patient confidentiality will be breached. Treatment information can be scrubbed of patient information by providing tables with various treatment plans and their outcomes with demographics rather than personal information. Indeed, the very fact that a doctor would violate patient-physician confidentiality makes them unfit to treat patients in the first place. The third paragraph is a little better, but fails to make a clear argument for your point of view. It helps to make a list of the reasons you support your position, and then number them from best to worst. Pick the top two or three, and focus on them. For example, in this prompt, you could take the position that disclosure of a doctor's treatment records is inadvisable because: 1. Success/failure of treatment has as much to do with the patient as it does the doctor. Underlying complications such as diabetes or obesity can skew the results of the best doctors, as can lifestyle choices such as smoking and inactivity. Providing physician interventions without getting the whole picture for each case may make a doctor who only treats young, healthy individuals look much more attractive than a highly skilled professional with years of experience treating high-risk patients presenting multiple complications. Because it would be impossible to present such detailed information, the disclosure of physician records would be inadvisable. 2. Patients may not possess the knowledge to understand the information presented. It is difficult enough for many patients to understand their diagnosis and treatment plans; adding another layer of information may be counterproductive if it is confusing or adds to the complexity of a treatment plan. Additionally, patients may focus on a continued search for the ideal doctor, confusing the role that doctors play versus current technology (which is close to your argument in the third paragraph). If information overload delays treatment, it may be worse than no disclosure at all. 3. Doctors may choose to only report information that makes them look good. Unless there is a way to uniformly report information for all doctors, some practices may choose to omit pertinent information. (this one is a little weak, I might be inclined to stick with just the first two, or maybe combine numbers 2 and 3). The end of your essay should present a counter-claim to show the grader the you understand that no issue is black or white. You could point out that you don't agree with the proposal, it may be helpful for practitioners to address the overall efficacy of a particular treatment (for example the five year life expectancy for a cancer treatment), to discuss emerging technologies and always invite questions as they arise. In all cases, after you write your essay, go back to the prompt and make sure you've addressed everything that is listed. Did you explain how your examples shaped your position? Did you provide specific examples? Did you explain why you took the position that you chose? If you have not done all of these things, your essay will be weak and incomplete.

Your position in the opening should be a little more clear. If you can't 100% champion the idea, does that mean you 0% champion it, or are you saying that there needs to be a little of both in a person's education? If the latter, then it would be more clear to say that. "Even though it is natural to think that way, I believe that negative outcomes can be useful learning tools when properly addressed." Your argument in the second paragraph is pretty good. It's a little long, but overall it's clear what you're trying to say. The third paragraph didn't feel like it fit in so well. I can see where the argument can be made that ignoring a bad habit is just as bad as ignoring a poor grade, but it didn't seem to naturally fit into the theme. Perhaps a better lead-in sentence would have helped: "Grades and test scores are not the only areas that teachers should focus on when searching for opportunities for growth. Identifying detrimental habits such as poor study skills can improve the quality of a student's work, but only if they are addressed and rectified, not ignored." The fourth paragraph should offer a counter-point to your theory that negative outcomes should be ignored. You do that very briefly, but it is rather vague "all positive actions and results" - I might have given an example such as a good report card deserves praise. Read your prompt very carefully: "In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position." GRE graders are looking for the essay that illustrates that the author understands that few things are black and white, and while you took a definite position, you understand that there are caveats. Are there times when pointing out a failure might be detrimental (such as when the failure is due to something beyond the student's control)? Are there ways of addressing negative outcomes that are inadvisable (for example doing it in front of peers or without proper feedback)? I'm not so sure about your last sentence. There will be no more or fewer geniuses because genius is not something that is learned; this makes the sentence seem a little flippant. Suggested revision: "Improved performance can be achieved by appropriately providing both praise and constructive feedback to help students understand opportunities for growth and maturity." I hope this feedback helps! Jen

The passages used on the RC portion of the test are complex and so are the questions. There are questions that offer answers very close to each other, and it would be easy to select the wrong option without a strong understanding of the entire content of the passage. If you want to try out the two methods, go to a test site (or use a book) and try ten questions with the first method, and then ten where you read the entire passage. You'll quickly see which one works best for you, but I cannot imagine someone getting a good score without reading the whole thing through.

I think you make pretty good arguments. The point about severe injuries vs minor injuries is good. I do think you missed one rather large omission in the data: how many hospitals were involved in this report, over what time period, and how many patients were seen? If only one hospital provided data, and only saw four roller-skate accidents, the argument for better equipment is weakened. For that matter, if only one hospital was involved and only reported for a short period of time (say three months), the four patients they reported could be all from the same incident. The argument is much stronger if the study involved ten hospitals over three years and included 1,000 patients, 75% of which were not wearing protective gear.

I'm not able to access the documents. If you message me the files I'll be happy to take a look.