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europegrad

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    lot.andre@gmail.com

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  • Location
    The Netherlands
  • Program
    M.Phil+Ph.D Finance

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  1. When I lived in Wyoming, I could drive on my foreign license for up to 1 year. However, I decided to get a WY license so I'd have proper ID without the need to carry my passport all the time. It was ridiculously easy: I downloaded the Wyoming Driving Code, studied it for 2 or 3 hours; then I went to DMV, waited in the line for 20 minutes, took a written test (15 ming), waited another half an hour, took a photograph and digitialy signed a form and then underwent the road test: 15 minutes, I passed then got temporary license on the spot. Definitive license came by mail 3 weeks after. No appoitments, just a $ 20 fee, no hassle, no red tape I loved it: American efficiency. Btw, I miss Laramie, Wyoming, a lot.
  2. Most american Ph.D programs fund their students, although requiring a variable teaching/research load. Many universities will require a fast didatic training for those who will teach. For people who come from abroad, the most unknown is your eduacation system, the most important is your standardized tests. TOEFL is usually used as a measure of fluency in English, and not in a competitive frame. I've seen requirements as low as 74 and as high as 106 (out of 120 in the internet-based version). When it comes to the GRE, it will depend much on the competitiveness of your program. For your area, scores on the Quantitative part of the exame are usually high, I'd guess more than 10% os test-takeres make it all on the Quant section. Again, I stress that as international student admission should be a greater concern of yours in terms of test scores. Usually, University will have a policy for funding international students. If they fund international students vis-a-vis as american ones, I doubt that many programs will hace special GRE cutoffs that are different than those for admission itself.
  3. I think that while it might take some time for one get an appointmene as an Embassy or Consulate, the officers never hold a passport for more than a few days.
  4. Same with me, they were courteous an added a "in case you are comfortable to share this information, which can be very helpful to us". I didn't have any problem telling them.
  5. Wow, never heard about a 260 score, though they surely exist (range is 200-800).
  6. I preffer to think that admissions are made in kind of a 3-step process. First, they cut-off unsuitable candidates very quickly. Second, they would select the candidates who stand out in relate of program's standards. Candidates with positive highligts in the pool, like a strong LOR from a knwon faculty, extremely high GRE, impressive SOP or other particular attractiviness to the program/department get in. Third, where most of admissions officers' time might be spent, they would have to deal with a number of qualified applicants for unfilled spots from phase 2. I believe selection process is not linear: it is probably easier to select firs ranked candidates than to select among the bottom-ranked qualified candidates in phase 3.
  7. I guess this year funding decisions in US will be particularly postponed in some cases as much as August. State Universities relying on anual budget might have not had their funding alloacated yet. Specially in a scenario of budget cuts, intrauniversity discussions might be heating up disputes among departments and programs to decide who is going to take most of the burn. Plunging endowements may need to be assessed more closely now, once the worst havoc on financial markets appear to be past. As a funding offer cannot be rescinded by the university, I guess (just guess) that many departments may be playing it safe by having based their already made funding offers based on worst-case scenarios that probably will not come true. If it is happening, it's also probably that above normal share of funding decisiosn will be done late this years.
  8. When I took an F-1 visa couple years ago the counsular officer at Brasilia Embassy (Brazil) didn't take more than 75 seconds do tell me my applications was approved and my visa were to be issued within a week.
  9. I was reading the GRE doesn't matter post and just thought it might be interesting to discuss when GRE or, in cases of business MA and Ph.D applicants, GMAT matter more than in normal situations. Of course, admission policy of each program counts for biggest difference among GRE importance on applicants analysis. Nonetheless, I personally believe that, under certain circumstances, GRE (GMAT when applicable) scores plays a bigger role on chances of one getting admitted or not. What do you thing about the following list of those situations: 1. Applicant is internationalIt's hard to evaluate GPA's across the board from different countries, grading systems and grade inflation cultures. In those cases, a GRE score, regardless of its own faults and shortcomings, might be a better indicator than GPA. 2. Applicant's score is far above program cohorts average score- Even if an admission committee downplays importance of GRE scores, an applicant who is otherwise on-average with others can carve his way into the program by presenting an extremely high test score. Of course, on the very top programs where average score are already high, this situation doesn't happen. 3. Undergrad GPA is terrible- For some reason one has partied hard on freshman & sophomore years and one's GPA is well below 3.0. A stellar GRE score may be the counterproof of laziness that admission committee needs. In fact, that might be the only quantitative "card on the table" the applicant might have to stand a chance of getting in. 4. Applicant hasn't good record on math/statistics courses- I can be wrong, but even for humanities programs a basic knowledge of quantitative methods are required at least as a methodological assessment tool. If one hasn't taken many (enough) quantitative courses, or if its program didn't offerred them , the afdmission committee may be more inteested than usla on GRE scores.
  10. I agree with the post above. Some GRE words are quite difficult, and the percentile for any given score in Verbal section will be far higher than Quantitative one. I don't have the numbers here (I took GMAT instead for a Finance doctorate program), but I'm sure that a 800 perfect score in Quantitative section will be on the 90-low-something percentile, while 650 in Verbal might be well beyond 90th percentile. I myself prefer GMAT-style questions, as I think its verbal section is far more driven towards analitical thinking than GRE's. Unfortunately, only business-related applicants have, most of the times, option to choose between GMAT and GRE. I'll post a broadly view of mine on the importance of GRE/GMAT on Application forum.
  11. I guess is quite the opposit, isn't it? If you really want a job in Finance, a professional master might fit better. They'll familiarize you more with financial models and some related tools that, although surpassed/taken as given in Stats research, are still widely used in trade floors, brokers and banks.
  12. I'm freaking out about this issue. I've moved from South America to Europe, alone and definitively - because I got Italian Citizenship. Left all potential mates there also. Now that I'm moving into The Netherlands for Grad School, I'm just scary about relationship perspectives there. I visited the University and met fellow grad students, and the picture seems to be like 90% of school grad students are men, and majority or remaning girls are commited/engaged. Maybe I should look on the Faculty of Behaivoural Sciences grads?
  13. Fortunately I'm on financial economics, where Marx is just that weird guy whose ideas halt growht and productivity for a while in certain regions.
  14. I had to take a GMAT instead, but some much of its issues are the same as GRE's (except for word sections which are replaced by critical reasoning and sentence completion). It paid very well for me to spend a lot of time learning the underlying logic of the common-type questions on verbal section. It's hard to get them (specially as I'm a non-native speaker who had never lived in English-speaking country before apart from exchange program), but after a lot of 'informed pratice' one can start to understand the implications, assumptions and general framework of the most awkward verbal exercises. When it comes to the quantitative section, I took revision on lot of topics of high school math, since calcs are not allowed and many questions deal with multipliers, factores, divisibility or could at least have their resolution fastened by using those concepts. They don't use so much question-type variations and it is feasible to get the pratice it requires to solve, let's say, up to the 65th percentile questions without thinking that much. GRE's and GMAT's quant sections cover essentialy the same topics; only GRE has quantity comparison questions and only GMAT has data sufficiency questions. I bought some books: Princeton Review (Crack GMAT, Verbal Pratice, Math Pratice), Official Guide for GMAT and KAPLAN (800 series). I took tons os mock tests (good ones), and could see my progress somehow. In that important day, I was having hard headache, and did not so well as I was then expecting on quantitative section. On the verbal section, I got it right, my overal score is 730 (96%). Verbal score was 99.6%. Got admitted on European-top department with full funding.
  15. That's true: PhD itself has no coursework and you're on payscale bottom.
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