1Q84

Haha you could say that again :/ Really? for an MA at a state school? The only campus I've seen that actually has an international student waiver is Cal State LA. Loyola Marymount has assistantships and teaching fellowships but they said they're "competitively awarded", which I take to mean it's going to be 4.0 GPAers and US residents who get it? I'm just really freaked out, as an international student.

I took both of the Cracking Online tests and they're strange. They only have 20 questions per section instead of 25 like it would be on the actual test. I'm assuming because they're gonna be rated differently in difficulty so they can extrapolate results from that but it doesn't seem like a true prep for the real test if you're missing 5 questions.

I'm the same (except I haven't actually given a fair shake to the quant section because I'm so terrible at math, I'm scared to even try!) But I'd also like to know what adcomms think of pretty bad quant scores for non-science non-math folk.

Wait could you elaborate on the state school funding thing? I'm applying to a bunch, as you can see, as an international student and definitely need some financial aid. Or are you talking about resident financial aid stuff only?

Okay this took me a few days to read through, a chunk at a time, but what an amazing interview. I feel like this should be pinned everywhere, at the top of every forum.

I like the Princeton book but the online practice tests peeve me to no end. I've done 3 on their site now and 2 of them had mistakes and the latest one I did, in the Verbal section, one of the "what does the highlighted sentence mean" questions didn't even have a highlighted question! YARGH! I got a 169 V and I could've gotten 170...

Phew! Thanks. I'm missing the great letters unfortunately... didn't connect enough with my profs in my BA : ( but hopefully I can do the rest. Thank you!

Dress your age too. I look really young and I really don't want to so I'm not gonna be wearing stuff that'll make me look like I might be waiting for my parents to pick me up after class.

I tried reading through most of these but couldn't get through them all. Are the majority of you applying for Ph.D's then? My heart pretty much sank as I scrolled through seeing how much work (conferences, papers, etc.) you all have done. I'm applying for an MA and I don't have a fraction of these works to my name...

When I got the page entitled "Strategies for Women", my jaw literally dropped. I had to check the cover to make sure this was actually a book from 2012 and not some cross-promotional Don Draper/Gruber satire guidebook. Does anyone else find this as incredibly offensive as me? And he even had the nerve to say "these are questions women found significantly more difficult than men, but after learning these (patented Gruber!) strategies, they scored the same." WHAT?! Who is this guy and what the hell is he going on about?!

The impression I'm getting from other threads and from some guide books is that the graders really don't care a jot for style, which is why often ESL students who understand the mechanics of writing better than a native speaker (who might try to add more flair) sometimes do better. The Princeton guide suggests putting in a rhetorical question to introduce a topic and their graders didn't take off any points when I put one in my practice test, so I'm not really sure if Kaplan or Princeton are right here but I can't imagine an ETS grader caring enough to take off points for a rhetorical question. They skim through each essay in 2 minutes seeing if it has clear ideas, is a good length and flows well. That's about it, apparently.

Amazing! This made me feel a lot better about life for some reason. It's nice to hear from an actual prof at points during the application process, I guess. Thank you!

Holy ______! That's a lot of topics Thanks for compiling! But where did you get them all? On the ETS site?

This might sound a little nutty, but try studying some Latin. As a Latin major, I would say I knew 3/4 of the words in those study lists already. The task of learning that last 1/4 plus making sure to jot down any words I didn't know from all the practice tests I did is a relatively simple one. Of course, I don't mean go become proficient in Latin. If you're really serious about improving your verbal score, however, learning Latin will most assuredly do the trick. Go pick up a copy of Cambridge Latin (they're elementary school Latin textbooks) if you can find it and delve right in. It's super simple. If you end up even learning just very common Latin prefixes like ob+ (against) and con/com+ (together) and ab+ (away) etc. you can literally increase your vocab by leaps and bounds since English creates hundreds (if not thousands) of different words simply by adding prefixes. I found when I was somewhat stumped on a piece of vocab in the practice tests, even if I knew the prefix I could suss out the meaning and make a good educated guess. As someone who just went through a B.Ed, I know that learning stuff by pattern is a million times more effective than by rote.

As is usually the case, asking the grad secretary is usually your best option. I asked a couple schools and they said sure. Either submitting an attachment with a list of the courses in question and an official course description from the school calendar will do. Some apps have a field for that and some ask for a separate sheet. I also talked to my undergrad school's transcript centre and they have a service where they cross reference courses and photocopy a course description from the school calendar of that year for free and send it along with the transcript. See if you can do that.

Thanks for the straight up answer! I guess I should just suck it up. Really good advice! Never thought of it that way. Focus on your strengths... <--- sunglasses to hide these eyes. They're English eyes. They ain't science eyes.

Thank you! You're amazing! PM'd

So when a school only states the necessary/minimum verbal scores for entrance into the program (I'm talking English Lit programs), it is the unspoken agreement that we can all throw up our hands and not even do the quantitative section? Because I would love that. <-- sunglasses to hide the fact that I haven't done math since grade 12, and not well since.... who knows when.

Chip meet shoulder. SAME. I cannot stand these reading comprehension questions! I love the fill in blanks and equivalence questions, though that may be a result of me being a vocabulary enthusiast. That's pretty nice to hear! What schools did you get full funding for your MA for? 98% on the subject test? Wow. I would probably grovelling in your presence. And you got rejected three times?! I guess GREs really don't count for much at all. Do you mind if I ask what it was that held you back so many times in the eyes of the adcomm?

You have lots of support here! No worries Some of my closest friends have anxiety disorders and have, with some struggle, done very well in grad school and beyond! You'll be fine. I think one point to really take home, though, is that you should never, EVER hesitate to contact the school's student services centre with issues such as yours when you get in (see when, not if!). Most, if not all, schools are pretty good and have established staff and policies for counselling or accommodations. It's unfortunate that your undergrad school had such a poor system of accommodation... In any case, something as easy as even speaking to your prof at the time, perhaps explaining your situation and proposing to orally present something during office hours instead of in front of the class could help. Good luck!

There go my reading comprehension skills... whoops This makes sense. Well I sure hope the stuff on the Princeton Review is a lot harder because some of them are pretty intense.

I don't think it's too soon, no. Better earlier than later, right? If I were you I would've just skipped over the schmooze part and gotten down to brass tacks. I mean as has been said countless times, it's a professional courtesy and somewhat part of their job description to do this for former students. I have a feeling most profs could do without the dance around the maypole before you come out with your request.

So it seems safe to say that aiming for a much higher score on the practice tests than you need would be a good idea, as there will be a drop when you take the actual test?

I've done a couple GRE practice tests so far and the ones from Princeton Review always happen to have these really intense and inscrutable scientific passages (origins of the universe with tons of specific astrophysics concepts/terms or physiological processes of the brain with tons of specific biology concepts/terms, etc.) What's up with this? I understand that technically we're supposed to be able to parse these few paragraphs regardless of any background knowledge on the subject and that the questions should be baesd on pulling information from the information that's given but it seems to me like putting overly scientific stuff is a little lousy. I mean the sections based on Shakespeare don't include heavy literature terminology... not really fair. I'm applying for English Lit, so of course I'd say that, but I guess they have to test science applicants too... ugh. Is this just the Princeton practice tests or will the real GRE include intense paragraphs like that?