DogsArePeopleToo

That's very helpful feedback. I am applying through an international exchange program run by the US government. They only require a "personal statement" and a "statement of study objectives," so it's hard to tailor it to any particular program. We get to express preferences for universities through the program, and they do the rest - and could disregard our preferences if they judge us more suitable for a different school. We're not allowed to apply to universities directly, but it is possible - though difficult - to obtain a waiver. Ah, the complicated world we live in...

Thank you very much for responding! Let me answer some of your questions: I am planning to study public policy. I was thinking to test my luck by applying to a mix of schools like HKS, Wilson, SIPA, Sanford, Indiana, Maxwell, Wagner, Bush, Martin (UK). That list tends towards the ambitious, but it's based on the hope for an improve quant score. Might drop some of the schools, depending on how my GRE retake turns out. But I'd still appreciate any thoughts on what schools I might realistically add or remove from this list. From undergrad, I already have two introductory and two intermediate economics courses, plus an intermediate statistics course and an introductory accounting course. I have B level grades in all of them. My TOEFL score, to the extent that it matters, is 116 out of 120.

Is there something about your life experience that could be woven into the SOP? Or maybe a concept from undergrad that stuck with you, that made you choose the field you want to study? An internship or work-related experience that taught you to do something...or avoid doing certain things/not to think in certain ways? Did some aspect of studying a second language make an impression? Maybe you've already thought about or done thees, but adding nonetheless to stimulate thinking for you or other respondents on this thread. But on a more devious level, if you can actually increase the font size of your full-stops and other punctuation marks by just one point, you'll cover a lot of ground There should be away to do this in one click through the Find and Replace function in Word.

If the difference between getting into a top-10 program and a top-20 program is one month of GRE prep, I would do it. Or if the difference between getting into a program with better funding lies in a better GRE grade, I'd still do it. And you seem quite confident about a significant improvement in your grades, so makes all the more sense, especially if you can up your AWA a bit.

OK, I've been reading about all these impressive people seeking opinions on their competitiveness. My stats are nowhere near most, but here are my stats. Grateful for any insights on what MPA/MPP programsI could possibly hope to apply to. GPA: My GPA is 3.23, mainly because I (stupidly) decided to challenge myself in undergrad and took a bunch of math classes that I shouldn't have probably GRE score: V163, Q149, writing still to come (I'm expecting a 5 or above, but you never know). I'm retaking the GRE in two months to improve my quant to close to 160, and hopefully also to push up my verbal by a couple of points. Work experience: Six years. I've worked in a leadership role in a nonprofit in DC, a researcher for a major INGO and ran my own business for three years Have been published a few times. Language skills: Speak English with full professional proficiency; speak three other languages. Undergrad academics Went to a four-year institution in the South. Not an Ivy, but respected in its own right. Overseas experience (work, study and teaching): Lived and worked in two different countries for many years, as a conflict-related refugee in one. Currently living in a developing country. Taught ESL for four years during middle and high school. (I don't count these years in my "professional" work experience) Recommendations: I have two very strong recommendations, one from a professor, the other from an employer. The third one is from a professor who wrote nice things but lacks specifics.

To add to the above, just for context: the Harvard Kennedy School, one of the most competitive schools for Master's in Public Policy and Administration, requires a TOEFL iBT minimum of 100 (Source: HKS website). And you use verbal and English language abilities a lot more for MP/MPA.

And to add to this helpful post, it always takes one to two weeks for your scores to arrive at the school after it has been sent by ETS.

I'm not in the CS field, but my two cents: A 108 on the TOEFL is the 93rd percentile. That's an excellent score. What the TOEFL tells grad schools is that your English is at the level where you can read, write and speak proper, university-level English. A 108 (out of 120) certainly demonstrates that very well. If you were applying for a program such as history, English literature or creative writing, there might have been a reason to prepare and retake. But for computer science, your TOEFL exceeds the minimum requirements of all the programs you're applying to, so I think you're covered, particularly if your GRE verbal and AWA are also good. If I were you, I would focus on the rest of your application components and would only retake the TOEFL if you had everything else ready and were just looking for a fun challenge to see how much high you could go.

That's very helpful, thank you very much!

I think after a couple years' worth of post-college work experience, some of the undergrad extracurricular activities could recede into the background. At the very least, they can be factored out of different versions of your resume depending on where you apply. For example, I was in student government too, and I worked on the IT help-desk. But when I applied to a researcher job with a human rights organization two years out of college, I didn't include that bit. But my time with the student newspaper was there. Now that I'm hoping to apply for an MA program, I'm having to go through the process of elimination again: IT help-desk won't cut it; volunteer with Asian Student Association won't cut it; student government, maybe...or maybe not? It's hard. But in my case, some of this work risks pulling me back to undergrad when I'm trying to show my credentials as a professional with five years of experience.

I have five years of work experience post-undergrad. Are there guidelines for how long my resume should be?

Best of luck with your application!

OK, so I'm not an IT or business person, but here is some general feedback that should hopefully be helpful: Your essay does a good job of setting out why you want an MSIS and why you want it from the Kelley Business School. Kudos, thumbs up. Here's some more: In the non-STEM fields I'm familiar with, applicants are generally encouraged to be more specific about their long-term goals and what the program helps them achieve beyond being "a leader," or "activist" or "manager" or "influencer." You might want to think about that. For an opening line, that seems on the longer side and could be catchier. I know you're trying to fit in the broader context, but generally it helps to start with a catchy attention grabber. This is good detail and contextualizes you within Intuit. Unless it's a restatement of what you have on your resume, which I'm assuming you will submit as part of your application package. If so, revise this bit. Use the space to tell something about you that's not a repeat of the resume. There are also places where your terminology seemed a bit foreign to me. Maybe they make sense to someone in the field, but here are some of the places that I thought were a bit jargon-y: "database schema modifications" "I was successful in achieving an 83% influence mechanism" - is 83% A+ or A or B+? A bit of contextualization might help. Also, what's "influence mechanism"? A few minor grammar points: Having studied from at one of India’s top technical institutes In the 4 four years of my engineering studies add value to on going ongoing campus activities regarding this sought after sought-after technology information and it’s its importance data driven data-driven systems These are just some things that stood out to me. Overall, it's a great essay. Best of luck!

I took the test this morning. ETS does not provide you with quant formulas. Knowing the formulas is part of the test. When I took the SAT a decade ago, test-takers were not expected to memorize the math formulas; on the GRE, they are. If the test center administrator gave your friend the formulas, that sounds rather odd. Test center administrators only give you a pencil and scratch paper. That's it.

OK, I can finally respond to this thread as well: Practice tests: Magoosh practice test: Verbal 164, Quant 149 (Magoosh's score predictor: Verbal: 157-162; Quant: 148-153) PowerPrep II test 1: Verbal: 157, Quant: 149 Actual test: Verbal: 163, Quant 148 (essay scores not out yet) Prep time: Spent about a month with an average of 3 hours a day, give or take. Mostly used Magoosh's instructional videos and practice questions. Observations: A bit bummed that my actual GRE scores were more or less the same as my first practice test of a few weeks ago. Magoosh was a better predictor of my actual scores than ETS. I spent almost no time on verbal prep, focusing instead on math, but to no avail. I am planning to retake the test in November and hope to use the time to improve my math score.

Hi folks, Is it true that ETS will include probability questions about, say, a deck of cards without telling us how many cards are there in a deck/suit and how many of each is hearts or spades, for example? Is this something they assume is common knowledge? I don't have the first clue about cards, so I'd totally bomb this. Thanks for any context.

I took a full-length Magoosh practice test (including both essays) and scored Q149 and V164. Two weeks and more prep work later, I took the PowerPrep I test and was surprised to see a far lower verbal score: 157 (quant remained the same). That drop is three points larger than the lower range Magoosh predicted for verbal. The only reason I can think of to account for the big drop in verbal is making test five hours long by a foolish coincidence. I started taking the "demo" PowerPrep test thinking it was the real thing - that involved writing two full essays and answering about half a section's worth of verbal and quant questions. Then I realized my mistake and immediately started taking the real practice test, so I might have been exhausted. But then again, why a drop in verbal and not math scores? A bit confused. I thought verbal was my strong suit. Thanks for any insights.

It all depends on where you're planning to apply to and the department's score ranges. I'd take a look at this Magoosh GRE score ranges for "top" universities. For example, NYU's range for sociology (OK, that's not anthro, but still), is 149-153 and verbal is 156-160. NYU is ranked 16th by US News and World Report, while 39th-ranked USC's sociology GRE scores are exactly the same range. Those are the ranges for applicants with mediocre to good to stellar undergrad records. Of course, GRE is not everything, not even close. For people with stellar undergrad records like yours, it probably matters even less than for others (like me ) who need to make up for their undergrad records with their GRE scores. Unless retaking the GRE is absolutely out of the question, I'd choose the right schools, do my best to explain the difference between my undergrad record and my GREs, then apply. One thing you might want to account for is why you didn't try to improve your GRE by retaking it.

I've been out of school for five years, which is too long in my opinion. This is when you realize that additional years of work don't add much to your learning or grad school profile, and you won't move upwards without a higher degree. At least I feel that way in my field. After these many years, I am also feeling like I won't get a master's before I hit 30, which is a bit of a bummer. So, in sum, my point is to keep the larger picture in mind beyond the logistics of your current situation. Dealing with burnout is important, and while you plan around it, I would try not to let my current experience of burnout affect my long-term prospects. Three years of work experience is a good time to start planning for grad school. You'll have had four years by the time you start school anyway. Hope this helps.

Thank you! Those are excellent questions and very relevant as I am going through my answers on the test.

Oh, and you just took the GRE today. Give yourself a few days to process the experience and your performance. With time, you can contextualize things better and make better decisions

First off, those are great numbers, congrats! You've scored in the 94th and 92nd percentiles on verbal and math, respectively, and you seem to have a stellar undergrad profile. I am inclined to think that if you have a few years' work experience and/or teaching assistant experience during undergrad, you are probably good with what you have. I'd focus more on letters of recommendation, a kick-ass personal statement and a research proposal, etc. To me, those are more important now. The "benchmark" really depends on the school and the profile of applicants they receive in any given cohort. It is almost cliche to say this, but admissions committees would tell you that those benchmarks are not cutoffs and they look at the entirety of an applicant's profile, which you seem to have going for you. Then again, most people who retake the GRE tend to score higher, according to ETS. It seems to me that the score improvement applies more to people whose first-attempt scores are lower than yours. But if you're feeling confident about recommendations, personal statement and your research proposal, and you won't need to spend an inordinate amount of prep time, you should go for it.

Hello folks, I recently took my first full-length practice test. I have a 164 on the verbal and 149 on the quant. I'm in the general vicinity of where I want to be on verbal, but I need to get my quant up to 158-160, roughly a ten-point increase from the 149 baseline. The question is, How many more questions do I need to get right for a 10-point scaled score increase? And as a corollary, how much score improvement can one expect on average on the GRE? For background, I've prepped for about three weeks and am taking my first real GRE test on Sep. 19. I plan a retake in November. Grateful for any insights.

Here's what the last 10 directors of policy planning did for their higher education: Jonathan Finer (current): JD from Yale, MPhil from Oxford David McKean: JD from Duke, MA from Fletcher Jake Sullivan: JD from Yale, MPhil from Oxford Anne-Marie Slaughter: MPhil from Oxford, JD from Harvard, DPhil from Oxford David Gordon: BA from Bowdoin, PhD in political science and economics from University of Michigan Stephen Krasner: MA from Columbia, PhD from Harvard Mitchell Reiss: MA from Fletcher, JD from Columbia, a higher degree from Oxford Richard Haass: MPhil and DPhil from Oxford Morton Halperin: BA from Columbia, PhD in IR from Harvard Gregory B. Craig: MA from Cambridge, JD from Yale As you can see, the director of policy planning requires a lot of academic study, and law is a very prominent academic path. (Also very prominent is Ivy-league schools or the Oxbridge). But more than a type of degree (law vs MA), these people have a lot of degrees, mostly from prominent schools. Obviously, millions of people have many degrees from prominent schools, so I'd also look at their professional careers. In all, if you have the right career path to get you to DoD or State, I'd advise that you do a JD. It's a professional degree that qualifies you to practice law, unlike MA degrees that don't do that. A JD is also far more versatile and can open up more opportunities than an MA. So, if you have the time, patience and (scholarship) money to do a JD, I'd opt fort hat. I'm obviously biased because I'm inclined to do a JD, but you can't deny its prominence in the list above and the fact that it opens up more doors.

I would check with the schools again. Some keep your application on file for a particular length of time after you submit it. Others require you to send everything all over again.