Taking the GRE multiple times

[NYorker]

Just curious to know how often people here have taken the GRE to get into speech pathology grad school? 

I know ETS allows you to take it up to 5 times a year. I am not ready for it right now but am thinking of taking it anyway and then cancelling the score. That would leave me 4 more times within the year, which is making me hesitate about wasting a chance. Hopefully I just need to take it once, but am wondering if students really do take it several times or the maximum 5 times allowed in .a year.

[jpiccolo]

I’d take it and find out your score. Then you really know where you’re at and where to improve. I don’t think you have to send them to schools if you aren’t happy with the score. Or if you haven’t registered yet, don’t waste the money until you’re ready. It’s expensive and stressful so make it count. 

[NYorker]

1 minute ago, jpiccolo said:

I’d take it and find out your score. Then you really know where you’re at and where to improve. I don’t think you have to send them to schools if you aren’t happy with the score. Or if you haven’t registered yet, don’t waste the money until you’re ready. It’s expensive and stressful so make it count. 

Thanks for the advice. I actually already registered to take it next week as I thought I would be ready but have not finished studying all the sections yet so I know my score will be low. i am scoring around the 15th percentile in my practice tests for math so far. I could either take it anyway and cancel the score or just pay the $50 fee and reschedule - still deciding on that.

[soontobeslp2018]

57 minutes ago, Optimistic000 said:

Just curious to know how often people here have taken the GRE to get into speech pathology grad school? 

I know ETS allows you to take it up to 5 times a year. I am not ready for it right now but am thinking of taking it anyway and then cancelling the score. That would leave me 4 more times within the year, which is making me hesitate about wasting a chance. Hopefully I just need to take it once, but am wondering if students really do take it several times or the maximum 5 times allowed in .a year.

If you take it you might as well let it score the test. Otherwise you just wasted $200, if you aren't satisfied with your score the first time you don't even have to send it to any schools. But I have always been told to never cancel the score

[NYorker]

2 minutes ago, soontobeslp2018 said:

If you take it you might as well let it score the test. Otherwise you just wasted $200, if you aren't satisfied with your score the first time you don't even have to send it to any schools. But I have always been told to never cancel the score

Good point - it seems there is nothing to lose by letting it score the test as the schools won't get to see it anyway, Not scoring is basically the same thing but just means I don't have the option of using the score at all. At least I think this is how it works, but I may be wrong.

[Southwestspeechie]

Why not take a free online full length practice test instead of spending $200 to see how you score? Best of luck to you! 

[andreadls22]

I was gonna suggest the same thing as felice. There’s full length practice tests on the ETS site and all the other prep sites as well. It’ll be a pretty good estimate of what you’ll score. I believe I was only like 2pts off on my actual scores. And it’s EXPENSIVE. If you can afford the $200 multiple times then by all means go ahead, but I personally could not and only took it once. Most people don’t improve very much over the multiple times they take it. In fact most people I’ve talked to actually did worse the second time around.