misterpat

No, you can't. Don't listen to them. That's cheating. It is SO cheating.

Waaa! I don't WANNA study for the GRE! If everyone else didn't do it, then I wouldnt' have to! :roll: That said, looking up every new word you come across is a great habit that I share with you fellows. There's really no excuse not to anymore, since you can simply text "d versimilitude" to 466453 and google will send you a pithy definition free of charge.

I highly doubt a program would throw out an app based on a 660v when they ideally want a 700. 660 is still 90th+ percentile, I think. I've never seen "panegyrate." I assume it's the verb form of "panegyric," which is formal or elaborate praise, but I didn't find it in a few onlines dictionaries. Console yourself with the fact that the odds of encountering that specific word are slim. Good luck!

The scores never change between your viewing them and receiving them in the mail. So the unofficial scores are always the same thing as the official scores. They could probably prevent the confusion the OP experienced in the future by switching the terminology from "unofficial scores" to "unofficial score report." But then they'd never make money off of that phone service. 8)

Burnout happens. Don't worry too much.

WordSmart for the GRE by Princeton Review, if you decide to work on your Verbal score. It's fantastic. Some people have told me they used AudioCD vocab builders in their cars.

Numeric entry questions are experimental only at this stage in ETS's R&D game. HOWEVER, they do not necessarily come in an experimental section. So, if you get one in the middle of a section, do not therefore assume that you have figured out that this section of the test doesn't count. It might be a real section.

What are unofficial scores? Do you simply mean the percentile rank? Because you aren't given that on test day. I have no idea what you are talking about. The scores you received after you take the test are official.

Powerprep isn't a CAT. The questions are the same every time. So it's not a perfect simulation and shouldn't be considered a reliable indicator. In case you are interested, my actual score on test day was higher than both of the POWERPREP tests that I took.

+1

I re-took a 600 Verbal, since it was 85th percentile when i took it. It didn't do me much good, since I didn't really get in anywhere, though I'm rather certain my scores weren't what kept me out. But I had a former professor tell me one's Verbal should be approaching 700, to be safe. Another Professor, at Temple - a lower-ranked (60s-ish) school, told me that I would probably need a 1350 to be a solid candidate for financial aid. (Full disclosure: I exceeded 1350, was admitted, but without financial aid. ) The above-posters, some of the board's finest I might add, have provided good advice. But I'd say if you were testing over 610 on Verbal regularly, re-taking might not be such a bad idea. Some professors/departments like GREs more than others, and while I have no doubt that the sample and statement trump GREs a thousand times over, it's tough to say with 100% certainty that your verbal is past the cut-off mark. You get 4 score reports when you take the GRE anyway. So, worst-case scenario, you score about the same, and pay $150 for 4 score reports instead of simply $80.

Is this supposed to be guerilla marketing? You're barking up the wrong tree here, son.

I would think so. A lot of students apply with MAs - it's not rare by any means. Your graduate GPA sounds like it will work nicely, but anything too far away from a 3.8-4.0 range will be a red flag. Graduate GPAs seem to be a lot higher, on average, than undergrad.

Since it appears that your native language is not English, you should relax about the AW score. Departments will probably cut you some slack. 3.0 should be just fine for an international student, provided your TOEFL score is up to par. Just make sure to have someone with superb English skills proof-read your Writing Sample and Statment, so that you don't end up with things like "Statement is obfuscating!" in there. :wink: The Statment should lay out what your interests are, and explain why you are a good fit with that particular department. But avoid masturbatory expositions on your own greatness (especially in the abstract) and coming off as a sycophant.

Half-true. It will hurt, but it's about 40th percentile, maybe a bit higher if I recall correctly. Unless you've been explicitly told otherwise, I doubt your GREs did you in, and especially not the Quant section. The Quant percentiles are pretty skewed because of all the Engineers, Stats, Math, etc. folks that take the test. If you get an 800, you're only at 92nd percentile. Though scoring in the 700s is probably a plus, I doubt the folks at NYU History looked down their noses at you because you missed a handful of difficult geometry problems. It just doesn't make much sense since it's totally irrelevant to what you're going to be doing in the program. I would bet that they accepted at least a few people with lower GREs than you. To the OP: I would re-take if you think you can score substantially higher.

This.

Well, comfort yourself with a few bits of info: 1. Indian Colonial History is supposedly one of the least saturated job markets in the discipline. I haven't seen hard evidence on this, so don't quote me. But a young professor told me that it's a rapidly growing area, and a lot of departments are looking for people with that specialization. One notch in the history column. 2. The legal job market sucks. It's arguably a more versatile degree than a History PhD, but I wouldn't go to law school simply because the opportunities are "better" with a law degree. You could end up hating your job, and by the transitive property of hating what you do, your life. Perhaps you'll be making enough money to make yourself feel better about it, but in this economy (btw: I am SO sick of hearing that phrase) it isn't a given. You could very well end up making a salary under 50k a year, or even end up without a job at all, should you rank poorly in your class. Check out http://www.jdunderground.com if you want to read the stories of people who probably shouldn't have gone to law school. They speak as if law school is a bad decision in all cases, which overstates the truth quite a bit. But perhaps ask yourself if you have more in common with these folks than you'd like to admit. I'm kind weighing the same decision you are, but I haven't entered either program yet, so take what I've said for what it's worth.

A worthy incentive to consider. I plan on worrying less this time around, which will certainly mean less time spent freaking-out with the neurotics who post here (I don't mean anything by this - my post count shows I'm as guilty as anyone).

They don't look at them until at least January. So, provided that your materials are on time, I doubt it really matters. I've heard that something like half of the applications arrive within the last week before the due date.

3 year plan? I regretted graduating too early when I did it in 4. I doubt taking a job after college will make or break your application. It's tough to go top 10 as it is. If you were going to make it in applying right out of undergrad, I don't think a short stint in the real world will sink your application. Plus, I've heard some departments like to see work experience - it proves you can handle an adult schedule, as opposed to varying days of sleeping in and pulling all-nighters typical of many undergrads. But I suppose that could refer to departments outside the T10.

Northwestern has Michael Sherry, http://www.history.northwestern.edu/people/sherry.html Don't know how the rest of the department is in that area. Interesting fact about Northwestern: they don't require/accept GRE scores.

Extra junk mail and maybe a certificate of some variety. You're welcome.

The biggest danger in applying with a sub-500 score is not that departments are going to think that you're awful at math (which they may or may not care about) but that it could send them the message that you are lazy. The math on the GRE isn't very hard; I work for a test prep company, and in my humble opinion the GRE math section is easier than even the ACT math section. With a bit of preparation, I would be surprised if anyone that graduated from an accredited high school (not to mention university) could get out of the 300 range. Even at the top of the 300s, you are still beneath the 10th percentile; 300 is the 3rd percentile. Unless a department explicitly states that they do not even look at the Quant section, I would be wary of submitting an application with "3rd percentile" on any section of the required standardized test. I mean, if you can't study for a couple weeks and cram pythagorean theorem, etc. into your head, what does that say about your work ethic?

I'm pretty sure job listings exceed PhDs awarded in the fields of African sistory and Latin American history. Other than that, we are all fucked.

I assumed that the E. European History vs. The Rights of Romanian Women 1950-70 was an attempt to gauge the degree of specificity that departments want in a SOP. Why the OP didn't use gradations in the field he/she designated, e.g. Constitutional History vs. the role of englightenment philosophy in anti-federalist thought, I couldn't explain. But I didn't pick up anything that indicated wavering between romanian womens movement and constitutional history.