Kitkat

Thanks to both of you. I'll PM both of you. If you want to send your SoP's to me as well, I'm all up for it.

So I am wondering if anyone is up for going over my SoP for me?

I feel like it was easier for me, mainly because I *could* go and skip the harder questions first. Even though I didn't use it much, I did use it some and it gave me a lot of piece of mind. Mainly I skipped through the hard ones, and when I went back I felt like I had more time to work on those, and didn't stress out on later easy ones because of the time issue. Which I think is what happened to be the first time. The times I really disliked that 'select all that apply' was in the verbal section, with the reading passages. With those I didn't find it harder to answer, just more time consuming. Really all of the answers were in the passage, it was just a matter of finding them. In the quant section, the questions that got me the most were the ones that you had to fill in yourself. I was rather glad that they got rid of antonyms and analogies, but they have basically replaced it with synonyms in the sentence completion. And the sentence completions are harder because of the more words that you have to use, and if you get one wrong even out of the blanks, you lose that question.

H24, As another note to you on your GRE score, based on the old scale, your verbal range is a really good score for the verbal. If you are planning on continuing with being in a field in social science, that could be a really good thing in your favor. It doesn't hurt at all that you also got an awesome score on your math. I think that the school just telling you a general 1300 total cut off score is just to let people know how competitive that the program is. If you think that the rest of your application is good, then you should be fine still applying to the program.

It is really a draining test, it being 4 hours long. Did you get an extra verbal or did you get an extra quant?

I would add to all of this, know what you want to go into grad school for. It's the first and most important step, as I have been realizing with SOP's. If you don't really know why you want to go, it's going to show. Along with that, as other people have mentioned, researching programs is really important. If you don't know why you want to go into a program/field, then you really won't know what you are looking for in a program. So try to figure out what you see yourself doing 5-10 years after you get your degree. You might not be doing that, but it will help.

So my question is this. For 3B, did you actually do research/take classes with and the like with him? Aka does he know your work, and can he say good things about you? If you did do a lot of work with him, then I would say ask that letter writer. The fact that you haven't talked much should not mean that much, just remind him of that. If not, then I would say go with 3A. From the sounds of it he *does* know your work, and the most recent of it. The reasoning of why I say this. While it is nice to get a major person in the field to write you a recommendation letter for your application, it won't really help you at all if they can't really say anything really good or helpful to why you would be good for graduate school. It might even backfire at you. So if 3B can't really talk to why you are good for grad school, it would be better to go with 3A who is less well know, but would know you better.

Yeah. I mean, I am sure that ETS has some idea where people will fall since they know how many people get each question right. They have been collecting all this data on the questions through experimental sections for how long now? I am sure that they are basing their ranges around how well people do on the data they already have. Do a standard bell curve of distribution around that score for possibilities. Of course this might be a oversimplification of the math and equations to how it might actually be working. The new percentiles though are based on how people respond to those questions in an actual testing situation with the new questions. That being why they aren't certain.

So as I have mentioned elsewhere in the forum, my GRE spread for the ranges was V740-800 and Q740-800. I have been noticing from a lot of people posting their scores so far that for the most part they are giving it in 100 pt ranges for each section, except for the people who are hitting the 800 mark on either section. That and I have yet to see someone get a smaller range then 50 pts. And that is mainly with people getting a 750-800 range on one section. So I am starting to think that they are giving a 50 pt range on either side around the score that they think you are likely to get, percentile wise. Now I could be wrong. What are other peoples thoughts?

I am thinking that it will be more like a 1360 for you. I am thinking that it will be a bell curve thing for them, cover their bases on both sides. Although I am sure that if they were wrong with percentiles and you did better onto the high side I am sure no one would complain. But I think that over all, from the looks of it, you have better odds of doing higher then a 1300 then below it. Do the programs you are looking at break it down by section, by percentile on how they want people applying to do? It might be easier to compare by those metrics since the whole thing is changing ...

My question is this, are your issues with your health an issue that has either gone away/ something that you have learned to deal with in relation to your studies? I am assuming that it is, since you are doing better with you masters studies. If that is the case, then I would say very briefly, you had some health issues in undergrad, but part of it was also that you were not as focused as you should have been in the future. That you are doing your masters now, as they can see you are much more focused now with your studies, and what you want to do. I think that if you put it in those terms, you should not be pigeonholed in anyway. If the health problems and lack of focus are something that have been dealt with, and are now no longer a problem now, then they shouldn't be an issue with adcomms.

I would say mention it briefly, in a context of why you switched over, if it was something other then, you realized while you were talking the require math classes for nursing that you would be better off in math. For the most part though, if you did well in the major and have LOR's attesting to the fact that they think you will do well in a Math Ph.D. don't think that there is much you need to explain. Things like that happen, but if you are good at math you are good at math. It isn't such a huge jump as going from say, east Asian philosophy to math. For the most part I agree with fuzzylogician (he finished his response while I was writing mine).

That sucks. Such an awesome field, and I am sure that there is a lot to look for out there. It would be horrible for you not to do what you want to just because you couldn't get the funding for school. I wish you luck. I am also curious to see how many schools people are applying to/have applied to in previous years? Personally it looks like I am settling on 9 right now, although I am not sure if that is too much or not, for something in geosciences. But since there are other people who can apply from other fields as well (like biology), and they also tend to apply to about this many, I don't know if it is enough. And then there is the consideration of the people writing my LOR's.

Thank you! I am wondering what other people's thought on this question that I have been thinking about. How do you think that they are working on getting these scores? After all it is still an adaptive test, but with sections now, rather then based on individual questions. So I am thinking that it is still more then just how many questions you get right or wrong. And this bothers me about the PR and Kaplan tests. I am not so sure that they are doing it as adaptive tests for their computer based practice tests, and therefore giving people a false idea either in the fact that they are doing better or worse then they would on the actual GRE. Any one else's thoughts?

Well I am not as on top of my game as you are, but this season I think I will be spending a lot of my time in this part of the forum. I'm crossing my fingers for all of us that are going to be going through it this year. i'll be finishing up the last of the first round revision of my SoP, from there adapt it to other schools. Took the GRE and awaiting the official results. Gather up the LOR's. Good luck to you (and everyone else this season)!

Nope, if you get part of it wrong, you get all of it wrong.....

With the Princeton Review, i think it wasn't just a matter of it being harder, but with the computer test also having a lot of errors in it, which I think is why there is such a huge difference with some of them. It wasn't even a matter of they had put in a wrong answer (a b instead of a d, that sort of thing), but in the actual test condition where I wasn't getting all of the reading passage or something like that. I didn't actually get a second scored test. What I did was I took the one scored one that they gave me when I started studying to see where I was, and where I needed to focus. That was about 3 months ahead. Half way through I used the untimed one to see where I was. Then I just retook the scored one to see where I was. It is probably not as accurate as if I took a brand new one, but it had been a while since I took/reviewed it, and I didn't see any need to memorize anything, it was *almost* like I was taking a new test. I recognized some questions, but I had to rethink my way though all of them.

So practice test results first: PR: test 1 - V144, Q154 test 2 - V159, Q154 Kaplan: test 1 - V32/40, Q32/40 PowerPREP test 1 - V640-740, Q730-800 test 2 - V670-770, Q730-800 The last time I took the exam before the change (I decided to retake it to try to raise my quant score) I got a V640, Q670 This time (Just took it yesterday) I got a range of : V740-800 Q740-800 Giving a total range of 1480-1600. I'm ecstatic if I am even on the very bottom of this range. Which is what I am basically going to assume for now until we get the official results in November. Although I will agree with previous posters in that I think that ETS is probably being conservative about their estimates with the scores. But I am thinking right now that at least with my range, it might be more likely that the numbers at most will end up in the middle of the range. So more of a 770-770 thing, possibly skewed more to the lower scores then anything.

I'm applying this year, I've already been getting my stuff together. I'm more into the geobiology and sed/strat stuff. I think that geosciences in general have more people who go out and do stuff. I know that is what I am looking for in labs.

If it's after the initial period of getting test data for ETS, then yes it should take no longer then about two weeks after your test date. That was how it was before the change in the format of the test, so it should be the same afterward. Just make sure that your four earliest are the ones that you send your four free score reports out to. Then they will get sent out ASAP, and they are more likely to get there in time. You should also check up with the schools before the holidays to make sure that they get them, since it will be so close to the deadline.

I think it's because they aren't sure what the results are going to look like with the new format. They don't want to give you false hope that your score is one percentile, and have it be something lower when you get your actual scores. There is uncertainty, they know it, they don't want to give false hope. After all they have made a major change to the test. I know that it is stressful going into the application season not knowing this score definitely and all... but that goes back to the fact that they should have made this change earlier in the year. But they are doing it now and we have to deal with it.

I noticed that they had several errors in both the verbal and quant sections for me. I ended up with a V-159, Q155, and hoping that that low score is due to the fact that there were those errors. I haven't heard of any issues like that with the actual test by ETS. It's probably due to the fact that they want as few problems as possible with people complaining about his or her scores due to bad questions and answers. They are doing that right now for scores until November. They are getting all the scores so that they can do percentiles based on the new format rather then on what they think, or based on the previous test. They are giving a range of scores from the previous test so you have an idea of how you have done, but your friend can check her actual score in the beginning of November when they start sending them out to schools. To quote the ETS website " After completing the revised General Test, you will receive preliminary scores at the test center. If you test between August and November 2011, you will see score ranges for the Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning measures that are based on the previous 200 – 800 GRE General Test reporting scales. The score ranges provided are intended to give you a sense of your performance on the two measures. Beginning in November 2011, you will see your unofficial scores for the Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning measures that are based on the new 130 – 170 score scales. Because of the Analytical Writing essay scoring process, you will not be able to view your Analytical Writing score at the testing center." More information can be found here: http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/faq/

So here is another question to go with this. If you have/had a 1000 word limit, did you then still go with your shorter 600-650 essay, even though you had more space to work with? I'm not doubting that it is a very good essay at that length, but at some point, do you get tempted to add one more paragraph of why you would be good for that program?

On the PowerPrep I got a 730-800 on the quant, and 670-770 on the verbal. Have yet to take the two online Princeton Review and Kaplan practice exams, but I will update later with those and with my final scores later.