jimmy_01

Thanks for your input Rachel B. It's a very wierd test; I know people who have very low academic aptitudes and get outstanding GRE scores. while some people who have amazing GPA's and great academic credentials somehow get low GRE scores. I guess it's a matter of practicing as many questions as humanly possible until you master the test. But, if that's the case, then I don't know why the GRE is even considered as a indicative tool for determining one's academic potential. The objective of the GRE seems to be irrelevent to the potential one may have in accomplishing many great things in any university.

It usually takes some time for the admissions office to update the online status of your application. They get thousands of applications during this time of the year. I'm not sure about Cornell, but I know that it can take almost up to a month for universities to update the online statuses. You just have to be patient.

To non humilis mulier: You're right, my GRE scores are not representative of my academic performance. Even my professors were shocked to hear about them! Unfortunately, I do not have time to retake the test, as the deadlines for the schools that I have applied to have passed. I used the Barrons book to prep up for the test, but I did not find it very helpful. The practice tests in the Barrons book seemed to be much easier than the actual test. If I don't get into the schools I applied to, then I'll look into other resouces for the retake. Thank you for your advice! To Helpplease123: For my undergrad, I did take the TOEFL, but the score is no longer valid due to the amount of time that has past since the day I had taken the exam. For grad school, the TOEFL is not required since I graduated from an American university. Yale, for example, states that a TOEFL can be waived if a non-native english speaker graduated from a US university. But like you said, hopefully the content in my SOP will supersede my verbal GRE score. I just don't want the admissions commitees of these universities to make assumptions about my academic performace based soely on my GRE scores...In my opinion, they are not good indicators about one's intellectual capabilities...

So I took the GRE in November and got shockingly (bad) scores. (Verbal: 140; Quantitative: 156; AW: 3.5...which translates to...Verbal:320, Quantitative: 720). Now, before you start assessing, I would just like to point out that I am a French native speaker (but graduated from an American university), and am an Electrical Engineering major. According to ETS's statistical distributions, my score (with the exeption of my verbal score) seems to fall within the average range for Electrical Engineers (http://www.ets.org/s...uide_table4.pdf). These scores are very shocking to me because I was a stellar student during my undergraduate studies. I graduated with two degrees (one in Electrical Engineering and one in Physics) with an overall GPA of 3.99, have a publication, and won numerous honors and awards for my academic performance. I was an honor student and got full tuition coverage from my university. I also did an internship for a reputable multinational company for 8 months during my undergrad studies, and am currently pursuing my Masters in Electrical Engineering (currently with a 4.0 GPA). I simply don't understand why I got such bad scores in the GRE. I already sent these scores to my desired univesities since the deadlines for most of these schools were approaching. Some of the schools that I applied to (For Ph.D) are in the top 10 for Electrical Engineering. Now, I know that the GRE is only one part of the application that is considered, and that there are many other factors involved in the admissions process; however, I am still very worried about the socres I have gotten (particularly in Verbal). Will I stand a chance for schools such as Yale, Stanford, etc..?