Kitkat

I think that is a bad analogy for this. You need a steering wheel to drive. You don't need to have a headline to understand a passage. The headline helps you and makes reading the passage easier, but not having one doesn't make it impossible. Lacking a steering wheel would make driving completely impossible, until we engineer a car that doesn't need one. I am wondering why you think that you need a crutch of a headline to help you read though a passage of a couple of paragraphs, at most? They are not going to be testing you on anything that a headline can give you. At most, them giving you a headline, they will give you questions that make the headline pointless, so I am wondering what it is you think the headline will help you with? After all, as a form of a reading test, they want to see what you get out of the whole reading.

My old score was: V640 = 162(92%) Q670 = 152(63%). Looking forward to the new results!

Saying government owned still means owned by the public. And I completely understand the need to have them. They are there to make sure that everyone has a fair chance at them. I'm also not saying that you should not follow the rules and regulations related to them. As many people have mentioned there are plenty of people who have protested who went through the proper channels. I'm sorry if what I said came out like it should be otherwise. But I feel like some people imply that if you camp out in the park that you are not necessarily following those rules. As a note about mentioning people I know, yes it is anecdotal, and that it is not representative of the whole movement. But it is also not representative to say that everybody who is protesting don't pay their taxes, or pay rent, which I think is what long_time_lurker is trying to say. The point I was trying to make was that that point is not true. With my statement, I was just trying to say that there are plenty of people who have paid taxes, not necessarily all of them. You are right that if the police are behaving just as bad, there are ways of handling it that are better then fighting back. I think that with OWS there is also a much larger amount of disorganization with this.

It is for the paper based test, but I think it might not be that different from the computer based version. I am assuming that at least the first section for the computer based version is similar to the paper based version, as that is the base point for everyone on that test. Where you go on the second section is dependent on the first and where I think the variation between the paper and computer based versions begin to change. I would assume that with the computer based version there is a bit more variation that you can have on the amount that you can get wrong, depending on the difficulty of your second section, and what kind of grade you might get. I think that the paper based might be close to say a middle of the road version of the computer based version. Although I think that the amount of questions you get right and wrong shouldn't matter, rather how many you get right or wrong in comparison to other people. After all, when you take the test, how do you know how many you got right or wrong, and how much control do you have over that other then knowing the material and how to get through it?

I would just like to say that this country was founded after a violent confrontation with the British government. I would always think that people in this county would have the right to protest things that they disagree with, whether other people agree with them or not. I think that it is what makes this country great. You can make the argument that the whole thing can be done better, sure. I am not saying that violence is needed in most protests, and is really not necessary in this one, but at times it can be a good thing. As to other people's argument about doing this in a public park, I would like to say a few things. It is after all a *public* park. To be used by the public. It is there for the use of everybody, including those who would like to protest. Considering the history of this country, I should say that it should be encouraged. As another note, I live in NYC, and I know people who have gone to the protests who have full time jobs and *are* paying their taxes, as well as people who have had jobs and lost them, but paid their taxes when they did, and even are still paying taxes on their unemployment checks. While some people have done illegal acts, there have also been people who have been abused by cops as well when they have not been doing anything illegal. So it has been going both ways in this situation. I would also argue that protesting excessive wealth is not as unpopular as you might think. The larger point I would make here though is that even the KKK is allowed to have protests/gatherings if they want to in public spaces, as long as no one actually gets hurt from what they are doing. So I don't see why the people in OWS can't also do so.

I spared myself some money by getting study material from the library, but I also took the GRE twice.

I think you should be fine with those scores with those schools, if only because they don't see so many applications that they use the GRE as the first round of the selection process, compared to other schools. The only reason why I mention competitiveness at schools, is because some schools get so many applications that they use GRE scores as a sort of filter to get some people out of the process, and they still have good options, even if some of the people they are not looking at would also be good for their program. I think that you have a good choice of schools though.

I think that it depends on what schools that you are looking at. Which ones, and how competitive? I think that if you come within range of the ave scores for the schools that you are looking at, or if the rest of the application you are sending is great, minimum GRE you should be fine. From what I know of the bio field(not as great as it should be), the quant score is good for where you want to be on ave, the verbal is slightly less then ideal, but solid. If you do well on the subject test, that should help you out a lot. But even then, it really depends on what the rest of your application looks like.

While it might be completely dependent on how people are doing, I think that you do stand a good chance of being around 90%. ETS has been doing this for a while, and I think statistics on a (possibly not the best option, but possibly better then the last?) test is something that they are good at.

I am with ktel on this. If you have researched your schools, you should have a good idea of why you think that you are a good fit. I also don't think that email the DGS is a good way to figure out if they think you are a good fit. The person you would be emailing might not be the best person to tell you that, will probably know that, and automatically flag you as not a good applicant if you go that route. It might be better, as ktel says based on your field, to email profs. In that case, say something like, this is why I think you and I would work well together, what do you think, can we talk more about it? The profs generally have a better idea if what you want to do works well with what you do, even if you are in a field where you might not work with just one adviser. It just might change on how you approach them in getting to know them better. I know that getting in that getting in touch of lots of professors is a lot of work, but I feel like if you really want to get into grad school, it might be worth the effort to make contact with people. If anything else, the professors more then the office staff will fight for you on adcomms for you to get in, if they have you on the fence when deciding.

I don't know about Engineering Management. You can try asking people in the fields of engineering or management. But there is this, it might be less of an issue if you are looking at a masters rather then a PhD, especially if they are not research based masters. The main reason to talk to people in a program is to see if they are even taking new people into their lab. So if you aren't going to be doing research, this isn't going to be an issue for you.

Very true. But I think people will be more happy to know what they actually got.

In a lot of fields, when applying to grad school, lots of people recommend that you email the profs you want to work with to see if they even have the space to take new students. Its more common practice in hard sciences/math. Less common in humanities fields. I would suggest if this is normal for what you are applying for.

It's great to see all the new bloggers out there!

I agree with the fact that some people can get into schools with a less then a 3.5. I'm sure that you would still want above a 3.0 GPA. It's a general thing, not a hard rule, but generally recommended. I have seen cases of that even on the forums here, on the results page. But at that point, you need something to back you up other then grades to say that you are good. I think what I am wondering is how important is something like research when you apply to grad school? Or contact that you have made with profs at those grad schools you are looking at? Letters of rec, how much do they help with applying with a lower GPA? How about fit to the program when you are talking about it in your SoP?

That might be a good thing. We only have a few more weeks until the results officially come out, and once that happens it will probably be a moot point. But it is just nerve racking until we get there.

Because I think that would defeat the point of having hard questions in the first place. Headlines are there to tell you basically what the passage/ article is about. In the real world, we use that to distinguish what we want/need to read from what we don't want/need to read. On the test, we have to sit there and read the passage no matter what. They want to see if we can figure it out without the easy method of looking at the headline. What if they want to give us the question of what type of headline would we give a passage? I'm sure that this is something they want to keep open, as I remember them asking on the old version. I feel that if they gave us headline, that they would then feel the need to give us harder questions.

I think it all depends. Your GPA is great, research is always a plus. Having good letters of rec are always good. So all of those things are in your favor. From what it sounds like is that the GRE is the weak part so far on your application. And no, the GRE is not the best measure of aptitude in grad school, but we have to deal with it all the same. Plus, you aren't the only one who didn't do well on it. It might become a factor depending on where you are applying to and what the "cutoffs" they have are. So depending at what schools you look at, and how you approach applying to them, yes you stand a chance. The middle of the overall range looks like it gets you right over the 1000 mark. But then there are a lot of fellowships that are also dependent on what GRE you get. So a bad GRE might get you knocked out of contention for more "highly ranked"/"competitive" school before they even look at the rest of the application, or prevent you from money you might otherwise very much deserve. What I would say is this. You have several things you can do. You can retake the test, and yes I know, its very short notice. Not much time to study and do better. On the other hand, if you don't meet the cutoff, you can talk to professors and administrators, make them see you for a whole person before they even get the application. Unfortunately, taking that route it still it hits you as far as fellowships are concerned, which is why I say that you should think about trying to retake.

Very true, but like I said if it is true. I still think though that a bigger point on this is to say that if they will only take a higher number on this new test, like a 160, and that is also a higher percentile then they were looking at previously, then they will be looking at a much smaller group overall for the next few years. While this might make them look more selective, I don't think that grad school is all about that. I think they are more likely to want to find students who fit the program better. After all most PhDs will be funded, and I don't think they will want to spend all that money just based on GRE scores alone. They will want to give themselves some room to work with.

At that point you should just say that professional journals should be professionally edited. If professors say that the journals are terrible then that's where it should be fixed. While I am not a huge fan of ETS, by arguement, they don't seem to be the cause of the problem. They are showing us what is out there and saying "Here read this, try to understand it. This is what you are going to have to read in grad school". If they are giving us terrible writing that is accurate to what we have to read in grad school then what is the problem with the passages that they give us? That is, after all, what they are trying to test us on .... No it's not fun for those of us who have to take the test, but I can't say that it is wrong of them.

I am in a similar situation, where I have two good recs all lined up, but the third one I still have to get, so I understand how frustrated you are, albiet mine is for a different reason. My department is really small, and most of my classes have been for one reason or another for the most part with two of the professors. So while other professors know me because they might have had one class with me, the problem has mainly been the fact that they have had only class with me. I am wondering what people think about asking profs you have only had one class that you have done well with or if I should ask someone like the head of the department who knows me and the work I have done with my research and what classes I have been taking, or if I should try one of the professors that I had one class with that I did well with first?

You are making the point that it is all a matter of perception of the scores themselves, and that being used to hurt the applicants. That is what is making you worried. I can completely understand that. I wish that they had made the switch to the new test sooner so that we could at least know what our final scores were, sooner then basically the deadlines for so many programs. Although I think that if they start making cutoffs for scores, they are going to first have to learn it. Yes until then they might make arbitrary cutoffs. But I think that since as people have pointed out else where in the forums is that the results of a new version of an exam is that they tend to be lower then later scores. If that is true, then having a slightly lower score right now shouldn't hurt a person. I say this mainly because so many people are taking the test now with the new scores. As another point with this, if they only take people who make a certain score, even if that means a higher percentile, they are shrinking their applicant pool. Some schools can do this, but I don't think that all of them can. There is also the fact that most programs don't just look at the GRE. I think that if you have a good application all around, even with a perceived lower score it should be fine.

You've mentioned before in another thread that you were looking at astrobio as the field you wanted to go into right? So I would say this, put your astro GPA down. You've already said that your math major is weak. And you've pointed out that the astro major is really just a physics + some extra classes, so really it covers both. Since the total highest is the astro anyway, go with it. If you feel like covering the rest you can explain it in your SoP. But I think that they will also see the three majors on your transcript anyway, so where you have to enter it is really just there to highlight the best one.

I think I am just looking at this from a different perspective then you are really, Lox26. The head of my department basically left me with the impression that in Earth Sciences that adcomms tend to look at the percentiles, not the number, and compare scores that way. It might be different in different fields, where other programs actually look at the score you got, and don't worry so much about the percentile. In my mind this makes sense, because I feel like the raw scores mean less if you don't look at the percentiles to give you some idea of what that score means. In m mind the GRE is all about having a four hour comparison test to other people. I understand your point on saying that people might see a 94% on a 15 pt spread differently then on a 8pt scale. But in the end isn't doing better then 94% of other test takers still doing better then 94% of other test takers? I think at those places where percentiles are what counts as the min that they want to see, I don't see those programs really changing it, or looking at something other then the percentiles.