zhukora

I can't speak broadly about this, but in my own personal experience talking with close friends of mine who were graduates of an engineering college, a lot of them didn't do as well as they had hoped--but not because they didn't know the math, or because they were insufficiently prepared for the test. The problem for them was that the math in the Quant section was stuff they had learned long ago in high school, and they had spent their college years doing multi-v calculus, game theory, and lots of other much more advanced concepts. They ended up being so far removed from the basic math on the GRE that they tended to overthink the questions and confuse themselves. That is not to say that your school doesn't teach advanced mathematical concepts, but perhaps just that the emphasis is different--your school may continue to use or focus on some of the more basic concepts even as you advance to higher levels, and U.S. schools may consider that information extraneous to the needs of an engineering or math major and let that set of concepts atrophy. I am very firmly in the social sciences, so I don't really know; just some possibilities.

Haha, thanks. :bows: :wink:

Selection bias (e.g. Berkson's bias)[1] is a distortion of evidence or data that arises from the way that the data are collected. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term selection bias most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, due to the method of collecting samples. If the selection bias is not taken into account then any conclusions drawn may be wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias What orangepotato means is that the scores you're describing when you talk about foreign applicants (and, more specifically, people at your institution and in your country) represent a different group of people than the scores that are cited for U.S. applicants, and that while they may be comparable to a degree, they are not directly comparable because of that difference in groups. I don't know anything about average GRE scores in India so I'll have to take your word that virtually everyone aces the Quant section, but the difference comes in when we consider who, exactly, is taking the GRE in India. As you mentioned, it is a huge financial burden for your family for you to apply to schools, and I would imagine a similar situation exists for most other people at your college who are doing the same. This means that only people who have the necessary familial support and personal assets to take the enormous financial and emotional risk of paying for the GRE and applying to American schools will do so. Because there is risk involved (i.e. there's no guarantee that even if you get top scores across the board, a perfect GPA, and shell out tons and tons of money, that you will be admitted anywhere), students who want to apply to U.S. grad programs have to do a careful cost/benefit analysis to determine whether they stand enough of a chance of succeeding to make it worth it to take on the risk. As a result, foreign students who take the GRE and apply to U.S. schools self-select into a pool of people who are the creme de la creme of training, determination, intelligence, access to top quality education, and ability to carry the financial burden. By contrast, taking the GRE and applying for grad school for native U.S. students may still be quite expensive, but as lycoris mentioned, nowhere near the degree it would be for people whose countries' currency can't match up to the American dollar, and involving nowhere near the risk since, it's true, American institutions cater primarily to American students and don't make any secret about the fact that that is who they primarily admit. As such, just about any American with a Bachelor's degree and a little bit of income or savings can opt into the U.S. graduate applicant pool. This means that it's not a very exclusive group (exclusive, yes, very exclusive? probably not), and represents a much wider cross-section of society in terms of educational history, test-specific training, IQ, etc. In this kind of cross section you can reasonably expect to see a much wider range of scores than if you took only the top end of the applicant spectrum. Without examining the factors that go into the average scores that come out of each situation, then yes, it would appear that foreign students might receive a much better education than American students, or are far more intelligent, depending on how you interpret it. In reality, the people who comprise each group being compared are vastly different, and that shouldn't be ignored. This is selection bias.

Selection bias: I do not think it means what you think it means. :roll:

I don't disagree that the test is teachable to a point. It is. But I think there are many other components besides just learning strategy that go into it too, and the weight these components have on a test taker's final score will vary widely from individual to individual--things like time management, ability to keep cool under pressure, familiarity with the material, quickness of recall, etc. If you don't have these things, no matter how much method and strategy you've memorized, it'll only get you so far. Again, I don't know that these things are worthwhile traits for ETS to be measuring for, or for grad schools to be looking for, and I don't know if these skills are even particularly useful outside the standardized test world, but since I'm not on an adcom it's not my place to say. That said, anecdata time! This may only be moderately relevant so make what you will of it. I didn't do any prep for the GRE beyond a few days of reviewing formulas for the quant and pretty much ignoring vocabulary. I've never taken a test prep class, and, at that point, had never learned anything about standardized test methodology, even though I'd taken a fair number of them throughout my public schooling days. I think I would be pretty hard-pressed to top the score I got even if I had taken every prep class available. I later trained to be a teacher for Kaplan GRE prep classes, and interestingly, with only a single exception, none of my fellow trainees had ever taken a test prep class or done much book prepping either. Given that you're required to have a combined score in the 90th percentile or higher to qualify to teach for Kaplan, I do think that makes a statement about...something. Maybe the self-selectivity of people who choose to teach these kinds of classes, maybe something about the local educational demographics, maybe something a little more relevant. Either way, I found that to be some interesting food for thought. A good friend of mine who has taught for Kaplan for close to two years now has made similar observations.

I'm inclined to agree with this. If it were just a case of learning the method, anyone who is qualified enough to consider going to grad school should be trainable enough to learn it. I certainly don't think that the GRE can show as complete a picture of an applicant as something so widely considered "vital" to an application should, but it does appear to show something beyond how well acquainted you are with standardized testing formats. As synthla says, I can't say whether what it shows is worthwhile, but a majority of grad programs seem to think it is and as a lowly applicant I'm not really in a position to argue.

I mostly get spam about enhancing the size of my penis. Which is funny, 'cause like you, I am most decidedly female. I've also gotten a few claiming to tell me how to buy a degree. One of them only had that as the subject line, and the body of the text was about Viagra, but one of them actually had some rather lengthy text inside about how life experience should be enough to qualify you for an advanced degree (in...what?), and that if you had that life experience, you should go ahead and send them your bank account information....

Funny story (and a true one, too!)... I went to the dentist today for my 6 month check-up and while he was poking around in my mouth he asked me if I was under any stress lately. Turns out I was starting to get a canker sore on part of my gums and he was convinced it was because of stress and not being sick or anything else. I told him about how stressful it is to wait to hear back from grad schools, and he proceeded to lecture me on how I should just "chill out" because there's nothing I can do about it now, and that my "ulcerative gingivitis" would go away after I stopped being stressed. So it looks like the stress of waaaiiitiinng really can harm your oral health. Watch out, kids! :twisted:

I contacted the very top professor I wanted to work with (I didn't apply to many schools), but I never heard back from her. I was a little disappointed, but I did discover later from RateMyProfessors that she is generally considered very disorganized. I'm not sure that's a good thing, but it would explain why I never heard back. :roll:

It will vary from school to school, of course, but most likely you will be notified about financial issues later. Given the current status of the economy, a lot of public schools in particular aren't certain yet how much money they will have going into the next academic year, so while they may have issued funding to the top two or three admits if they know they have the money for that already in the bag, they may be waiting on offering funding to the next highest ranked group until they know where that funding will come from. There's also the issue of a lot of funding coming from a central pool for the whole university that will be disbursed among the highest-ranked of everybody's admits, so they have to wait until every single department finishes recruiting before they figure out who gets the money and then send out notification. I'd say you've got anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months before the window for financial aid notifications starts closing. Don't worry yet, schools try really hard to fund their grad students, so give them some time to try to put something together for you.

Aaaughhh! Why must you tell me this? Now I'm going to have to compulsively check my email inbox at least twice as often.

Not true. I'm sure it varies significantly based on location (i.e. cost of living) and field, but I have had to process a lot of UC faculty salary data for a couple of more technically-based departments at the university I work for, and in my departments, not even the most junior of faculty made less than 80k. Granted this is for technical departments rather than humanities or social science (where I'd be shocked if it wasn't much, much lower), and the university where I am is in a pretty high-rent area. Some of the most prestigious bow-deeply-and-kiss-their-hem faculty make up around 200k, but there are maybe three of those between the two departments whose data I've handled. Most seemed to top out around 100-125k by the time they reached tenure. Also not true. If you were a senior administrator (and there are precious few of those), you might break six figures, but about half of the staff I know have been working for the UCs in some capacity or other since graduating from college (or high school) themselves, and even the ones who are looking at retirement in perhaps 10 years have never seen, and will never see, a six-figure salary. That said, the staff benefits (health, etc) are freakin' awesome. So that does make up for it to a decent degree.

I'd put it between $450 and $500 for me--that would be 2 schools with completed applications, and one aborted application because I realized partway through the process that it wasn't right for me. ETS and applications fees (oh holy moly application fees!) are by far the biggest drain of the bunch. I'm suuuuuper glad that my tiny teeny little undergrad institution lets alums have as many transcripts as they want for one low price of $0.00. Especially since I had to order two sets after the first set mysteriously vanished. I may rack up more cost as I (*crosses fingers*) potentially get invited for interviews/recruitment weekends, but if I even make it that far, it'll be worth it.

My personal favorite: http://www.coffeebreakarcade.com An EPIC compendium of just about every mindless online game ever (with obvious exceptions like those privately produced and copyrighted, like everything at http://www.orisinal.com).

Oh Noes! I work in a departmental office at a big university, and I just realized I answer all my calls with "Hello"! I guess I'd better go back and check the chapter in the employee handbook where it explains how to psychically discern whether it is a grad applicant on the other end of the line and what their admit status is so I'll know whether to address them with "Hello" or "STOP CALLING ME" or even just "You've got the wrong number, the line for admissions is xxxxx, you should call them instead".

Can you take the TOEFL? It seems like most schools put less weight on the verbal section of the GRE if you have decent TOEFL scores.

Well sure, conviction is pretty difficult. I'm sure there are plenty of people who get away with that kind of stuff every day. My point was just that if your morals/ethics compass is working properly, you wouldn't shy from reporting a friend for running a scam just because you don't want to upset them, and you shouldn't shy from reporting ethically wrong and probably criminal behavior in this case either.

Agreed all round. Honestly, if any of you found out that a friend or family member had committed a more commonly-acknowledged "serious" crime (by which I mean fraud and false impersonation are crimes, for all that some people on this thread would prefer to ignore that), like had been the perpetrator of a hit-and-run car accident, or had stolen money from elderly people in some kind of scam... would you not report it just because you were afraid of being a tattle-tale, a narc, or breaking your friend's "trust"? In many cases you could be considered an accessory, or could be convicted of aiding and abetting or obstruction of justice. Reporting this person's wrongdoing was the only way to do right here.

No, her most critical mistake was thinking she could cheat the system by not doing the same hard work everyone else did. The ranks of people who obtain graduate degrees are small for a reason--it's HARD, it's SCARY, and it's UNBELIEVABLY stressful for every single person who does it. Not one person has ever gone through the graduate application process like it was a cakewalk. We all question ourselves, our abilities, our past and future work, and we force ourselves to interact with people who are frightening for those as inexperienced as ourselves, whether it's our own advisors and faculty, potential advisors at our hopeful future schoools, etc. The difference here is that those of us who are or will be successful have managed to force ourselves to belly up to the bar and overcome our apprehensions. Intelligence and ability to write well or research well are not enough to succeed in academia. Sheer intestinal fortitude is needed too, and in spades. Oh come ON. None of this bawwing about "you big meanie this" or "you big meanie that". Sure the OP probably has some insecurities, but that has nothing to do with what's going on here. I see plenty of you projecting your own insecurities on the OP, and I can only conclude you're so vehemently against her because you're afraid someone just like her might out you for whatever underhanded things you might have done to get around your social paralysis. But again, that is neither here nor there. Telling the Dean was not a "fucking pig move" of any kind. It was honest, it was upstanding, and it was fair. Sure, the person who forged her letters may end up losing out on graduate admissions because of it, but think of how many people might have been elbowed out of a chance at admissions by the seriously unethical actions of this person had she succeeded in fooling everyone? Where's your sympathy for them? They're probably just as intelligent, just as qualified (if not moreso) but they're willing to play by the rules, and there is no call to deprive them of what could rightfully be theirs just because there is one person who couldn't hack it and thought she'd cheat her way in instead. Those who do this the ethical way are FAR more deserving of that admit spot, and if nothing else, the OP was acting in their defense...people whom she doesn't know and may never meet. There is nothing predatory about that. Really, who would want to find out they were bumped to the waiting list or rejected because someone defrauded their way into the program? If anyone, the person with the fraudulent application sounds like the "predatory" "complete shitsack" to me.

I agree with this completely. Integrity is everything in Academia. Can you imagine how badly a grad student attempting to publish, or god forbid, a tenured faculty member, would be reamed by their colleagues if they were outed as impostors who forged their sources, even if they were "smart" or their research ended up being "right" in the end? The grad student would probably be tossed out on their ear and never admitted to an accredited graduate program again (Academia is small, and word gets around), and the faculty member would lose their reputation and credibility entirely, and would be forced to resign. Her forging letters now only shows what kind of character and moral fiber she has (she'd rather cheat and lie than, what, put on her big girl pants and talk to a faculty member one-on-one?), and if she's willing to do this now, if she gets away with it she'll only be more willing to do it again later when the stakes are higher. I also second everyone's suggestions to send an anonymous letter to the schools she's applied to asking them to look into this. You may not be able to follow up with the faculty whose names and LORs were forged, and neither will the head of the department if specific names aren't known, but the graduate admissions committees absolutely will be able to, and will do so in a heartbeat if such a serious allegation is raised. I don't know the field this person is applying for admission in, and I don't know what schools, but this kind of unethical behavior really sets my teeth on edge, especially if there's any chance whatsoever the perpetrator might get away with it. Heck, if I had the pertinent information, I might even be willing to do it myself. I've worked with too many people who never would have gotten where they were without an unfair leg-up, and it is one of the most maddening things ever.

Anthro here, too!

I am an employee of a public California university, and I think it bears mentioning that although the state and public universities are certainly very closely knit organizations, the UC system and the Cal State system are actually discrete entities from the government. They receive a great deal of funding from the state government, but they have quite a bit more play than other public institutions when it comes to what they do with that funding once they have it. In other words, I am a university employee, but not necessarily an employee of the state--the governator's proclamations about what will happen to state employees do not directly affect me and my co-workers, or affect us only with modification by the university system and the university itself. Technically there has been a hiring freeze in most public universities in CA since mid-April, and the universities have been trying to cut back on employee paid time since mid-summer, so the latest fiscal developments are not going to affect this much. Up until this point, the hiring freeze has mainly affected only administrative and support staff, with new faculty continuing to be hired as needs arise, and graduate employment continuing pretty much unchanged; it is my understanding that this will continue to be the case. However with the latest round of belt-tightening, it's becoming evident that university support staff simply can't sustain their workload if additional significant limitations are placed on them, so things are moving up the food chain. Right now (at least at the university I work at), the biggest cost cuts are occurring at the level of the operating budgets of individual departments (which is to say, the money they use to host colloquia, maintain classroom and administrative equipment, purchase department supplies, etc), and most drastically, at the level of upper management. Proposals have been put forward that all university Presidents, Chancellors, and various senior executives have their salaries frozen until further notice. I don't think these measures have been adopted yet, but I suspect that although things are certainly going to get tougher for admissions and grad funding as time goes on, given the direction of cuts to date, actual in-policy limitations on anything affecting grad students will happen only as a last resort (undergrads are a different story), and in practice, limitations will mainly occur as a side-effect of faculty having less research funding made available to them from other organizations, and central funding sources being given only moderate cuts. The big problem is that without any kind of state budget in place currently, and without any concrete information about what will happen when the state runs out of cash, the universities don't know exactly how much shortfall they're going to have to compensate for. So far they have tried overcompensating rather than undercompensating, and are not currently in as bad a shape as they were afraid they would be back in April, but with the future as one big unknown, it's very unclear how things will look come February. TL;DR Version--The Current Press Release: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/n ... icle/19282