habanero

I got a 690 V and 750 Q on my preliminary exam and I still felt the need to study. Some people are just perfectionists and others need very high scores to get into their dream schools.

At the risk of sounding rude, why don't you do some research on the subject? This site will be a good starting point: http://www.cs.utep.edu/admissions/

Message it to me.

The verbal correlates to IQ, doesn't it (maybe not after this revision)? So there's that.

Actually, 159 Q was a 750 on the prior scale and is an 82nd percentile. http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/concordance_information.pdf

This conversation has gotten a little ridiculous. ETS needs some way to test us. If every article read like Newsweek, we would all get 100% of the questions correct. The test is hard because we're all college graduates/almost graduates with excellent reading comprehension skills. ETS can't just ask us easy questions! They are meant to be hard!!! A title would change nothing because the new questions would reflect the change. I COMPLETELY agree that most of the articles aren't amazing and that the questions are phrased in very obnoxious ways, but you must understand that the exam is designed to give a relatively normal distribution of scores. If we all did very well, the exam's curve would have failed.

Yuck! This is terrible news. Thank goodness I made sure to register for a second test date later this month. I have a bad feeling that my Q score will be dismal. I guess I'll continue with the retest if it is below 85th percentile.

If I were you, I'd take a year off to work on getting some letters and a higher GPA. You sound like your aptitude is quite high but you just got caught up in life (like so many of us do)! I would take one or two graduate-level courses and volunteer for a lab at a close school. However, you could always apply to a few schools this year and see how you do. Your GRE scores are high enough that some mid-level schools might be willing to overlook other parts of your application. After you complete your masters, you'll have enough references for your PhD.

PM me. I'd be happy to review it.

Because they're trying to scale ranges to give a more accurate score distribution at the higher percentiles. If an old 800 (94th percentile) is now 166, than a new '800' should be 170 and 99th percentile. The score ranges they gave us (750-800) should be in the highest percentiles. Scores of 750 can't stay ranked the same; if a new '800' is worth more than an old 800, an old 750 will be at a lower percentile than a new '750'. I was just throwing out "around 90th percentile" because it seemed plausible and we don't know very much at this point. The whole point of restructuring the exam was to fix the broken parts*--both exams were terribly skewed. * and if you're cynical, to make more $$$

So if the old 800Q is a 166 (94th percentile) and the new 800Q is a 170 (99th percentile), does that mean that scores like 750 will be around 90th percentile? Gosh, this is just so interesting!

So I guess that my experience of the new math being harder might be an accurate assessment. Wow, Taylor--Manhattan didn't hire you for nothing! Boi, u speedy: http://www.urch.com/...gre-scores.html

Yesss!! Everybody needs to log in ASAP and give us their old scores with new conversions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I made sure to review perm/comb and there wasn't a single question about it on my test! The bulk of mine was definitely algebra. There was very little geometry. There was a surprising amount of statistics.

Did your ADHD lead you to the topic you're interested in going to school for? For example, 'My ADHD..............now I want to study learning disabilities in college students...........my own experiences have given me a unique perspective on this............'

Update: I actually got REAL MAIL from NYU 'recruiting' me for some program! Granted, it was just a glorified postcard, but still....that's a first! Congrats on the MIT and Carnegie recruits! Your quant ranges must have been a little cuter than mine

What are the average scores listed for the schools that you wish to attend?

730-800...I feel like I have a good chance, but I'm still nervous. My math sections were pretty difficult (in particular, the last section) and my verbal sections seemed pretty easy, so I don't really know how I'll fare.

I think that if they truly influenced you, you could talk about reading science fiction and non-fiction as a teen and how it inspired you. I wouldn't mention a Michael Crichton book specifically, though. The committee will mostly care about your ability to be a successful graduate student and not your flowery prose (I think). Have there been any recent papers that have influenced your graduate school decisions? I have also noticed that my ability to write has pretty much dried up into technical styles only. It's hard for me to enjoy any other kind of writing now--and I was originally a poetry major. It's rather unfortunate. In magazines, I now skip over fiction and go straight to profiles or journalistic writing.

I'm getting more and more nervous as each day passes! I really hope that I get above 85th percentile on Q.

I'm really sorry. I responded without reading closely enough! I thought you meant you had no math, not just no math research. I apologize if my answer seemed curt. It seems like you could spin your Japanese economy research into something useful for the admissions committee; after all, you were studying the economy! I think that programs generally just want some research. My research isn't in the specific subfield I'm applying to. They want to know that you are a serious student who will succeed, and some research experience does show that.

I've gotten about 7 recruitment emails and they've all been for highly-ranked Masters programs in math-y and computer science-y things. I know that they can't possibly be based on my scores since they're unknown. I also come from a very small school, so obviously they won't care about that. I am 100% certain that when I selected 'Computer Science' as my major, it put me into a giant database that schools can access. I know that it can be exciting when UC Berkeley's email address pops up in your inbox, but try to stay emotionally strong!

I think your idea is solid. You should only apply to institutions that you really, really want to go to this round.

Ooh, the SOP has been SO hard for me to write!!!!! I've seriously been staring an an empty document and occasionally writing a sentence or two (just to erase them later). Obviously I know why I want to get a PhD, but putting it into convincing words has been a little difficult. How about you? If you want somebody to proof your SOP, I'm more than willing! I spent a year and a half at a biomedical lab doing everything from writing instrumentation manuals to image processing software, so I'll probably touch on everything major I did there. My other two undergrad 'research' areas weren't really anything incredible...just some small grants and projects for professors. They will get mentions. I was a tutor for 2 1/2 years, and I will talk about that. I have no publications. I'm applying to such a long list of schools because the chances of getting into most are around 7%. Undoubtedly, most of them will reject me--not because I'm not qualified, but because there are so many strong candidates! The requirements for Computer Science schools are much more strict than nearly any other program (perhaps Economics is the hardest to get into). It's great that another HCI person is posting on here! It'd be funny if we ended up going to the same school. I'll be crossing my fingers for you.

Applying to graduate school to study Biostatistics without any math might be a bad idea. From UW's Biostatistics website: Potential M.S. and Ph.D. students may enter the Graduate Program in Biostatistics from an undergraduate major in mathematics, statistics, or a biological sciences field. Students are occasionally admitted with backgrounds in other fields; however, all applicants should have the equivalent of 30 or more quarter credits in mathematics and statistics, which must include: approximately two years of calculus (must cover multivariate calculus) one course in linear algebra one course in probability theory