iowaguy

Anyone want to swap diversity statements? (i.e. what special background, skills, talents, etc will you contribute to your incoming class, yada, yada) FWIW, I'm a Caucasian, middle-class male, (not very diverse) and am struggling with the diversity statement

IMHO, your 710 will be compared against other peoples' current scores, so yes it will be taken into account. When schools publish the GRE scores of their incoming class, they publish the hard scores, not the percentiles. According to ETS concordance tables, in 2012 (as of April 30), a 710Q is the same as a 155, which is 64th percentile. i.e. in 2012 (those applying now) 36% of test takers scored higher than you in Q. Those people are your current competition...

This has been very helpful, I really appreciate the feedback!!!

My applications have asked for a test date along with the Q, V, and AW scores, i.e. all self-reported scores are from the same test date. I would personally leave the AW blank. If you put the 5.0 in there, and then your "official" scores come back something different, it could possibly look like you were trying to be shady. They'll soon see the official results with your AW score (and most schools don't put that much emphasis on it anyway...). If you are asked about why you left it blank, you can say that because of Sandy you had to take the GRE later than you had planned, and you didn't get your AW score in time to self-report it... That's just my opinion, YMMV.

Raja - if there's any way you can retake the GRE and still make your deadlines, I would recommend that you retake. 21st percentile will likely cause you to miss the cutoffs (even if the school doesn't have a "minimum") at some of the good programs you're applying to. Supposedly, some programs are lenient on when the "official" GRE results arrive. That is, you could possibly self-report your GRE scores by your application deadlines, even though the official results don't arrive for another couple of weeks. If I were in your shoes, I would personally retake the exam, and self-report my scores to meet the deadlines. Best of luck, the rest of your background sounds very solid!

For those that have a stipend that rises with inflation, was this explicit in your original offer from the university? Thanks!

Hi Saviya, seemed like a sensitive/greedy question to ask my desired programs before I was admitted (I'm currently in the "waiting" stage). I figured it would be nice to know what other departments/universities do so that I can use that as bargaining leverage, if needed...

Does your RA or TA stipend rise each year with inflation? Or does it stay the same for the 5 years of your PhD studies? Trying to plan out my finances for the next half-decade...

Magoosh has a great study schedule depending on how much time before your test: http://magoosh.com/gre/gre-study-plans-and-guides/

I would go visit if at all possible, especially since he raised that possibility... I met with 3 different POI's face-to-face after talking on the phone with them, I think it helps a lot!

Hi Raja, 140V is 10th percentile. I think you'll miss the cutoffs at most good programs with such a low score, it will raise a red flag. Just my honest opinion... I would try to study your verbal as hard as you can before your GRE test to try to raise your score as much as possible. Good luck.

Very strict at my testing center as well as far as what I was allowed to bring in and the procedures for checking in & out during breaks (which unfortunately ate up a lot of the break time). If you want more scratch paper you have to turn yours in. They also collect your scratch paper at the end of the test. I think the idea is to be sure no one is copying material to take home & post on the internet, etc...

PBT not an option here in the states, but hypothetically if I had the choice, I would take the computer-based test. With the PBT I personally would struggle with hand-writing the AW section for two 30-minute sections, I hardly write these days (mostly typing) and am sure I would have some writers cramps!!! Plus much easier to edit your AW essays with the computer-based test. Not sure how a calculator is handled for the PBT (possibly not allowed), but it is included on the computer-based. Not that I use the calculator much (takes too much time in general), but it did come in handy a couple of times. Might be something else to consider...

I did the same thing, IMHO it shows you're thinking bigger picture by wanting to work with professors outside the dept (this probably depends on the field of study). From what I gather, at least in my field, profs are working on more interdisciplinary teams these days...

Another thought is to use rounding to get through those types of questions quickly, but mark them for review (especially if the answer choices are fairly close together as TakerUK mentioned). Then if you have enough time leftover at the end you can go back and use the calculator, etc to be sure of your answer. If you don't have enough time at the end, you can rest assured that you probably got the right answer in the least amount of time... IMHO it's better to round/estimate, yet not be 100% sure, but get through the entire test; than to get too anal retentive about exactly calculating every answer yet not get to the last several questions (particularly relevant on a 2nd "tough" quant section where every second counts).

If you score well on the first section, you will receive harder questions on the 2nd section. On my test, my 1st quant section was significantly easier than the 2nd. But it is on a section basis, not question-by-question (like the old GRE was).

Child of 2 - Neither

ETS practice tests (free) are hard to beat: http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/powerprep2

Cunn - I had most of what you describe on my quant test as well, particularly the 2nd harder section (I had 3 verbal sections, one of which was of course experimental, so I know both quant were actual test sections). I also had a couple of difficult fill-in-the-blank statistics questions. Parabolas, Venn diagrams, & permutations/combinations are all covered in the ETS math review: http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_math_review.pdf Of course, even ETS says that their own math review is not all-inclusive, that there might be some material on the test that is not covered in their review!?!

Anyone willing to share what you use for a home office setup? Do you use a laptop which you can then also use at your lab? Do you have a separate desktop unit at home with dual monitors that you do your number crunching on? Do you find an iPad indispensable? In general, does your lab give you a license for software that you can also use at home? i.e. if your research involves using SPSS, ArcGIS, etc (expensive software), can you only access these files on-campus or do you access them at home as well? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as I start to plan for my upcoming technology investment…

Thanks y'all, this was very helpful !!!

Have you gone through the (free) ETS math review? http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_math_review.pdf

When exactly does one generally find out if you've received the Star Fellowship? If you include it in your application under "funding applied for" but you (and the school) don't find out if you got awarded until after the school (and you) have made your admissions decision, then what good is it really? Seems like it's best to apply for it 2 years before you actually plan to attend school, i.e. you would have applied in fall 2011 (and found out in spring 2012) for fall 2013 admission - that way the school would know whether you received funding when the admit you. Otherwise, why not just wait and apply as a 1st year PhD student. You could then get a LOR from your advisor, and he/she could help you with the technical aspects of your project description so that you would have a better overall application... Thoughts?

Thanks Eigen. For your binders, do you organize your hard-copy papers by subject or author or year or ???. Just trying to get everything organized before I start on some intensive lit review...

One advantage of working with a "young professor," assuming your research interests mesh, is that they are motivated to publish big time in the years leading up to their tenure review. This could potentially get your name on more pubs as a co-author with them, if that's important to your career goals...