Helpplease123

Thank you so much for all of the suggestions, that was a really helpful post!!

I think the point made by Eigen sums it up quite nicely, they need to differentiate between candidates somehow and clearly having no headlines/titles is one of the ways to do that.

Well i ended up with Q159 and V165 so i'm by no means giving advice as an ace test taker but for my revision, the main things i focused on were learning the words (this may have been more of an issue for me than you because we don't ever get vocab tested in England and I think you probably learnt lots of them for SATs) and loads of practice tests and questions for the quant. The Kaplan book I had gave you access to 6 online practice tests which were really helpful and and lots of practice questions. Also going through the answer keys and picking up shortcuts and tricks they give you. What bits of the algebra do you find difficult? Something thats always helped me with the more complicated algebra is just abandon it altogether and picking fake numbers instead, not sure if you're already doing that?

What areas are you struggling with? 4 weeks is plenty of time to get your scores up

Thank you for your response! There are a few areas I think i'd be happy living in - california, ny/nj/ri etc., north carolina but an important factor for me is that because i'm English, i'd ideally like to go to a school that would be known by people when I go back home. So doesn't need to be private but preferably with a good name. I feel confident about parts of my application but am worried about my lack of full time experience in the public sector (I do have a sizeable chunk of volunteer work for nonprofits though). Definitely would've been interested in UCLA or Berkley but unfortunately they don't have an MPA program. I don't want to be left with no options because I only applied to top programs and my stats weren't good enough but at the same time, the amount of money that would go into me moving to America to study means that the school really needs to be worth it, so I guess what i'm really looking for are any schools that may be slightly safer options but still highly ranked.

Hi, I just took the revised GRE test today and pretty pleased with my results , especially as I bombed the GMAT about a month ago. I want to start an MPA program in the fall but I am not sure based on my stats what would be good safety schools, although I've picked out schools I really want to go to, don't want to be left with nothing! Stats are: 25/F from England Undergrad 3.5 GPA in Psychology and quite a bit of charity work etc while at Uni. GRE: Q159 (old scoring 750) - 82nd percentile, V165 (old scoring 690) - 96th percentile) 6 months travelling in central america, 6 months at a language school in Austria (studying German) 1 year working in events 2 years working in retail (1 year in management in a department store, 1 year in buying for the companies website), then left to start studying Right now am taking online classes in calculus and statistics and volunteering at an elderly persons home, from January enrolling in community college to take classes in micro/macro economics, finance and maybe some poli sci as didn't take any of these things as part of my undergrad and think I will find the MPA too difficult with no prior knowledge. I would like to apply to USC, NYU and Columbia but was wondering if based on my stats I have any chances of getting in and what other schools I should consider as safer options. Looking forward to getting your opinions/suggestions! Thanks!