canuck

I think the GRE is basically used as it should be: to cull poor applications. Given that you can rewrite the GRE to get rid of statistical anomalies there is basically no reason why your score should be awful. There is no way a school like Caltech will say 'oh wow 800 on the quantitative you are accepted'; their average acceptance is 790 in engineering, everyone has high scores. Conversely a sub 750 score will probably result in an instant visit to the trash bin. The GRE doesn't give any insight into the nature of the top applicants just serves as a handy first cut. On the other hand a great LOR from a legend in the field, or a list of first author journal pubs, or a perfect GPA from a top institution probably will get you acceptance. I think basically my point is that the GRE is irrelevant.... as long as you don't screw it up!

I think the point of a standarized test is to provide an equal measure (or standard) upon which to gauge everyone. Applicants are coming from very different schools. The value of an A is not uniform even if from two classes in the same department. To accomplish this the tasks are made trivial enough (Quant) or ridiculous enough (Verbal) that each applicant wouldn't have a 'signficant' advantage over the next. You then have to work a bit to overcome a minor disadvantage such as not having done much 10th grade mathematics in a while. However claiming that the fact that you have to work a bit somehow invalidates the GRE as a way to cull utterly substandard applicants is absurd. Good researchers are made up of 3/4 work ethic, 1/4 insight.

Isn't studying hard to do well what you intend to do in a doctoral program then?

In my humble opinion, motivation to study and ability as a PhD researcher are virtually equivalent. In all but the most esoteric fields there is such a colossal amount of literature to wade through to get from the undergraduate level to the 'state-of-the-art'. If the GRE is a measure of your attitude then perhaps it is a better indicator of research potential than some would hope to believe; ie, treating your PhD studies like 'I don't care if other people work hard, I'm gonna just put in a few hours and get by on my brilliance' is not going to get you anywhere just like it doesn't on the GRE.

For the American schools I applied to it seems like the acceptances are given out sometime in mid February and the rejections get mailed out late March. The Canadian acceptances generally are doled out rather late April-ish. Imperial College has some sort of rolling timeline, basically I think they respond 6 weeks after your application, not terribly sure.

Hey I just wanted to start an area where people can share news about their engineering apps. I've applied to do a PhD in mechanical engineering at: Berkeley Cornell UCSD Imperial College London University of Toronto McGill will keep you posted on the results, if people care to do the same that'd be great.