Hanyuye

Thing is, I am applying to petroleum engineering programs and had a lot of domestic issues during my undergrad. A French lit professor who was my mentor/advisor for 3 years and also my thesis supervisor is the fifth recommender. I thought he was on sabbatical away from the country but turns out he is in town. He knows me personally and i'm pretty sure his words are very good concerning I majored in English first, then went to Math, thus my double-major can be an advantage or 'doubt' to adcomms. Is that a good enough reason for a 5th recommender? Also, I can't order the recommenders because the universities I am applying to require them by mail! Which makes things a hundred times harder since they have to go back to school for a school letter-head and then send them which might take a full week-10 days.

Hi there, I am applying for graduate school and now and some universities require a minimum of 3 recommendations. I am definitely submitting 4 recommendations and have a possibility of a fifth recommender. Will that look bad for adcomms ? Any suggestions about this are welcome!

Thanks MisterMister, that's very encouraging of you. Also a question, as I round up my recommendations for graduate school, I had a mentor (French Literature Professor) who mentored me for 5 years. Will adcomms see it as a negative that he isn't a math/science/engineering professor? Or as a positive that he has known me during my troubling years of my first undergrad when I had severe domestic issues and was there during my dramatic improvement?

I would take Real Analysis but Hunter/Baruch nor City offers it this spring and if they do, it's in a horrible time according to my work schedule. I already have the requirements for my math major for a stat course and if I get into the Probability Course, I'll take it. Numerical analysis is being taught by an infamous professor, so I won't tread there. What about PDE in an engineering sense? I enjoyed ODE very much.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/search/aap?query=astoria&srchType=A&zoomToPosting=&minAsk=&maxAsk=&bedrooms= If you check out the average prices, I highly doubt anyone can get prices cheaper than I quoted at all. I'm not calling you a liar but even in the main NY thread, the prices I stated were about right. I have no clue how your friends had it for MUCH cheaper, perhaps it wasn't Astoria, could be College Point.

There's a whole thread on NYC. Check it out. I'm born and bred here in NYC. NYC's food is not cheap whatsoever. And Astoria is a very cramped neighborhood where students flood in and flood out so prices are not cheap whatsoever. Expect to pay 800-1100 dollars on a tiny 15 x 10 bedroom, 4 friends of mine lived in Astoria and that was the average room. This is NYC, not Wyoming. Not here to bash Ablukhov but NYC is not to be underestimated in terms of prices and expenses. For cheaper rents, Jackson Heights, Woodside, Sunnyside in Queens, the further east in Queens, the cheaper and of course the longer the commute. As for Brooklyn, I'm not sure. Travel time to LIC from BK is around 30 minutes to 1 hour, Depending on what trains you take, the G train being the fastest. Then again, check the thread!

Hi Shostakovich, I actually have no problems catching/keeping up or the sorts. I understand all the material, it's my test taking skills that are lacking. My grades reflect my test taking, I completely blackout during the test- my studying and all I have remembered are voided and there goes my grade and precious time and money! As for the professor hours, I have only been taught by one professor out of 8 classes, the rest are adjuncts on their way to PHD or Masters and have no office hours(except one), I can only reach them via email and this trend during my second undergrad is INCREDIBLY inconvenient. I just have an extreme case to fight the uphill battle and it keeps getting steeper. I do seek online forums and tutoring as they are my only help. As for my other classes, I have taken Graph Theory (A), Matrix Algebra (A+), Discrete Math , ODE , Math Proofs , Geology 102(A) since I'm applying for petroleum engineering programs, Physics II (A). I will retake Vector Cal this spring along with PDE and maybe number theory. In summer, Linear Algebra and Number Theory if I don't take it in the spring.

Vertices, I had counseling before during my first undergrad. It helped a lot as I was extremely depressed about domestic issues. I was a Literature major back then and did well on exams. I will go back regarding this test anxieties which I can't shake off, thanks for the suggestion. Only one professor knows about my hardships, I've yet to tell the other 3. Will tell one or two of them to address it in their recommendations. I'm not hesitant in retaking the courses, just that I HAVE to go through much, much red tape just to do so. CUNY policies are extremely backward in this sense where I need permission from the department and professor. As for applying for grad school, I'm still going to apply and very much notify them that I'm retaking classes and will continue do so. Thank you all for the suggestions, please continue to do so because it will help tremendously!

I suppose that if I take a class the second time, I MUST get an A or A+ this time around? Meaning, if I receive a B the second time around, how will that seem?

I'm very happy for this thread. However, what if someone was to go back to school (second undergrad) in my case and still get an under 3.0 gpa? When the first was just 3.0 itself???

This is a repeating cycle and I keep getting washed by the waves. I got a D, C and D in Vector Cal, Cal 3 and Cal 2 respectively. My Cal 2 grade was understandable as it was my first semester of college and I had enormous domestic issues at home and also couldn't afford the textbooks/calculators for the course. However, with my Cal 3 and Vector Cal grades, my test performances have been terrible. It takes me 2 months to understand the material and then it's too late to rectify the poor performance. I have intense test anxiety which I never had before ever since coming back to school. I excelled in math my whole life until college, then I switched my major because I was highly discouraged(terrible faculty and advisors were the main ones) and a million other factors. I am applying for grad school as we speak and I know I can do better in those classes. Will retaking these classes in the spring semester or summer do me any good? All-in-all, I believe my studying habits are completely insufficient in my math classes. I only feel satisfied studying with groups now and doubt everything I do by myself. I'm not looking to get into top tier schools, fyi, more like second/third tier schools. I'd greatly appreciate the help, especially from school faculty.

I wish I had those scores myself. Took it 3 times and got the same lousy scores. Your scores are pretty good. You shouldn't have to retake them, honestly. If you have a promising GPA, LOR, etc, your application should be quite recognizable.

I just retook the GRE today. Again, I want to state I'm a math major. Again, I received the same scores for the third time in a row. 158 Q, 154 V. I am beyond furious and since I'm taking 3 advanced math courses plus full-time work. I never had the time to get tutoring for the GRE nor could I afford it.....or find a schedule that fits my classes and work. This is ridiculous as I VERY CONFIDENT about today's test, and the approximate score said (158 Q, 154 V as noted above). I don't understand if I have a mental limit with the GRE or somehow I have taken a VERY drastic decline in test-taking skills. I really need help with this as I bought all the recommended books and yet as a math major, this over-simplification and verbose quality of the math problems are extremely ANNOYING. My GPA isn't that high and I'm desperate for a change. 3 times in a row and everytime I've changed my studying habits and still the same score. Really discouraging as I know MANY friends who are not math majors and scored 168 in the Q and 160 in the V in the first try without tutoring or with little assistance. Totally ruined my mood for the next whole month if I can retake it for the 4th time.

No, that's quite damn good. May I ask how did you study for it ?

Update us when you can xdarth!

Sigh, I'm having the same issue, though not to the extent of your ADD as you described it. I'm a former Math major turned English Major turned back to Math major. So I should be excelling in both parts! But I can't stand reading text on screen, it's @###@# horrible. I'm taking Calculus 4 and the verbose and sly quality of words in the Quant section doesn't coincide my current knowledge of Math. It's incredibly sickening, I swear!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Sigh, sigh sigh....same score again. Have to retake it in November, 3rd time in 11 months. I just can't seem to grasp it on my own. Forcing myself to get tutoring/prep classes.

Retaking it tomorrow. Work got in the way for the passed 2 weeks, overtime schedule and rebounded my study time. Now I can't decide whether to take it tomorrow or delay it in 2 weeks. I'm really frustrated as I'm an applied math major and can't stand timed-math tests. I actually have all the books a friend on this forum recommended, most of them are the ones mentioned above. And those books really work well!

Usually it's between 500 and 1000 worlds.

I called their department to see if they were in sabbatical or still teaching. But I never got a hold of any of them directly (left voicemails with their secretaries) I don't have a problem, they simply are out of touch when it comes to contact students outside their network.

I just retook the exam yesterday. My second time, got an approximate score(at end of exam) 152/V 159 Q. This is worse than my score last year and I'm EXTREMELY furious. I am a math major now and haven't taken advanced math courses for 5 years and now I'm back in my groove. But the GRE's wording, 35 minute timer of the exam is extremely pathetic. The verbose quality of their questions is unnecessary. This exam doesn't cover calculus or college math and yet it stumbles us or me. I either need private tutoring on this exam or need to totally revamp my studying habits for it. Also, there were questions on standard deviation that I completely forgot how to solve. These sd questions were not in any kaplan, princeton review, barrons book I bought in 2011. And the questions in these books are MUCH easier than the real exam. If anyone could throw me a huge doggybone and suggest ways to get at least a 165 on the Q, we'd appreciate it!

I have similar grades and retaking the GRE. I didn't do well in LA, CAL2, CAL3 and will hopefully make it up with Cal 4 an GRE Q today.

I actually got in touch with several graduate students who graduated this year with MS and no work experience, only thesis/independent research. And now they're in Houston, Baton Rouge, OK City with 6 figure jobs as reservoir/petroleum/drilling engineers. I appreciate the links but I've read countless pages and the information in your link is highly circumstantial. Everything is looking fine now. Will keep people posted.

I highly doubt that happened. That's incredibly bogus. Oil will be around for hundreds of years despite the ongoing movement towards eco-friendly technology/energy resources. The demand is high, so is the pay, I know 4 petro engineers myself (but couldn't answer my academic questions regarding the programs) and they most certainly believe the technology needed to reserve all this petroleum will have to advance as fast as possible with a proportional increase in demand and salaries.

Ah, ok, compared to Baruch. I graduated from Baruch with a BA. However, getting a graduate degree from a senior CUNY college is very precarious. Only companies in the northeast will recognize the school and hardly any of the schools are dedicated towards research. Baruch has an EXCELLENT Financial Engineering program where I personally know Columbia/Harvard graduates attend and came out of there with what they expected, wall street lucrative jobs. Hunter's Statistics is more theory based while Baruch is more business applied with a mix of CIS/CS. I can give you a more info, just shoot it at me!