"Horrendous" GRE Scores and GPA!

[snowcapk]

It's tough to say for sure not knowing the difficulty of the exam or the student's performance. It could be that the exam was directly in his area of interest and he performed miserably on it. Would you still call the professor petty then?

I agree with this. It's one thing to not be able to study for an exam, and demonstrate no understanding of the new material. It's another thing to write something that utterly proves you did not retain the material from prerequisite courses and have no clue what you're doing. I doubt this was the case for anese, but I think we can all imagine an exam performance so bad that it abrogates a strong academic record.

[zigazowohnow]

I still think it is petty to tell a student who has performed exceptionally well in your course with the exception of ONE exam that this is the reason they feel they are not able to write a recommendation for them to continue on for graduate studies.

It's one exam, the best of the best do poorly on ONE exam. Even if it is in the exact area that the student wants to explore during their graduate studies that is still a petty and potentially dangerous thing to do. What if the potential applicant took the profs. rejection to heart and took applying off the table. We could be short an academic that could have contributed greatly to our world.

My opinion is if someone says you did poorly on one exam and therefore you are not prepared for graduate school then talk to multiple professors and see what their perspective is on you as an applicant. Maybe it's the same, who knows, I don't even know you, but I'm sure you can get a better explanation of why you wouldn't be prepared that is not based on one exam.

[anewtypedude]

I think when that happens it can be one of two things:

A. The personal statement: This is so important! Maybe there was a typo (admissions committees hate that!) or maybe it wasn't conveying what you thought it was. I noticed almost everyone says that after they look over their personal statement, they are embarrassed that they even submitted it (I am including myself in this category). I think the majority of us mistakenly look @ grad. admissions as being similar to undergrad and that one essay isn't going to make much of a difference. BUT a lot of us find out the hard way that it does!

B. Letter of Recommendation: I've heard a story of one professor writing a letter of rec. for a student and after the student got rejected from all the programs they applied to they opened a rec. from a school they decided not to apply. The body of the recommendation was neutral but at the end the professor wrote on the bottom, "I would not recommend this student for a PhD." Personally I would have rather you just say no I won't write you a letter of recommendation than do something like that and waste ALL of my time, money and effort!

or C. Sexual harrassing girls on interview weekends didn't exactly help my cause either :roll:

[zigazowohnow]

or C. Sexual harrassing girls on interview weekends didn't exactly help my cause either :roll:

I hope you're joking and you weren't really harassing girls during your interview weekend.

[anewtypedude]

not sure about if making fun of her menstrual cycle counts as harrassing.... :oops:

[ukiitm]

not sure about if making fun of her menstrual cycle counts as harrassing.... :oops:

W.T.F.?

Edits: 1) Included quote. 2) Add(ing)ed this line.

[zigazowohnow]

not sure about if making fun of her menstrual cycle counts as harrassing.... :oops:

...but really you're joking right?!

[Minnesotan]

It's only sexual harassment if you get turned on by it.

And she doesn't.

[zigazowohnow]

It's only sexual harassment if you get turned on by it.

And she doesn't.

I pray that this did not turn him on

[zigazowohnow]

I love how off topic posts can become

[Minnesotan]

I love how off topic posts can become

I blame the fact that there are 90 gajillion posts that contain people's GPA and GRE scores, along with a desperate plea for everyone to rate their chances. You can't rate someone's chances of getting a job at Perkins with just their numbers, let alone assure them that they'll get into grad school, and that it's all going to be okay once they stop hyperventilating.

Thus the topics veer quickly toward stupidity.

[MebiggyNooby]

In my long and illustrious academic life I have noticed that this attitude is not restricted to online forums. A majority of the students tend to downplay their performance/ preparation. Before/After an exam, preparation/performance questions are almost always answered by "I don't know anything"/"I am going to fail". Maybe because the whole environment is so damned competitive.

I have a funny incident about recommendations. A lecturer, who I was in the good books of, agreed to write me a recommendation. The recommendation was online and the lecturer was notified by mail. She kept postponing the recommendation and a couple of days before the deadline admitted that she had deleted the notification. The college has no option to send a reminder and since I had already sent my application package I could not send a paper copy. The admission office was sympathetic and agreed to accept a faxed copy. But my status still says "Application Incomplete". :roll:

[underdog]

I can relate to Horrendous scores. I am a bit older trying to return to college. My GPA is significantly lower due to mistakes made many years ago. (2.84) I'm a crappy test taker, and thus my GRE score isn't as high as I would like it to be. (890) SO, I have these 2 things working against me. I felt like quite the "groveler" applying to college. But I think it's my heartfelt personal statement and my great recommendation letters that got me accepted to my choice school, although one STILL hasn't gotten back to me yet. I made great relationships with my profs in my 2nd try at college. I also spent a good amount of time in the work force, so I have proven that I can/will work hard. I have also done volunteer work in my field. I believe all these things have helped me get my acceptance. I think colleges aren't as focused on scores as we are. I think now-a-days they are looking at the whole student and asking themselves how each individual can contribute something unique to the program.

[ukiitm]

Aye, and that's as good for the students as it is for the universities.

[Louiselab]

If it makes you feel better, there's a good chance your GRE scores will never get there....

[zigazowohnow]

[quote name="Louiselab

[snagsby52]

Same here. I didn't do that well on my GREs [badly on the math, and decently--but certainly not great--on the verbal section. However, I did do well on the analytical writing.]

However, a lot of schools looked past the mediocre GRE scores to see that I was passionate about my work, and that my writing was really good. I had won prizes on my writing, so of course that helped. However, I am afraid that the Ivies care about these scores, so I wish that I was better at taking the exams. That said, no one (in the Humanities at least) gets in BECAUSE of their GRE scores. If you have a good application, then I am sure that good scores can push you over the edge in favorable decision-making, and make you lose out at some places (i.e. the Ivies) if they are too low. I think the scores judge your ability to take tests, but very little else. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but in my mind, they are no indicator of how you are going to do in grad school. Candidates should be judged on their academic merits, rather than their ability to answer 30 verbal questions in 30 minutes. It takes a lot longer to write a good paper or thesis, and we have yet to imagine how much endurance it is going to take to write a good dissertation. :roll:

[anewtypedude]

I can attest to the fact that the GRE scores have little to no criterion validity. I got a 1420, and I am like the dumbest person east of Mississippi (sp?). The only place that I have been admitted to is a program that didn't conduct interview...sucks to be them :mrgreen:

[snagsby52]

I'm sure that is not true. That is a seriously good score, which I would be proud of, and I am envious of your test-taking abilities. For real. My point is that judging someone heavily on their GRE scores is ridiculous, because you have done so much work before taking them that should count for a lot more. 4 YEARS of college should count for more than a 3 1/2 HOUR exam--especially when only a part of the exam counts.

[zigazowohnow]

I can attest to the fact that the GRE scores have little to no criterion validity. I got a 1420, and I am like the dumbest person east of Mississippi (sp?). The only place that I have been admitted to is a program that didn't conduct interview...sucks to be them :mrgreen:

You're hilarious!

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but in my mind, they are no indicator of how you are going to do in grad school. Candidates should be judged on their academic merits, rather than their ability to answer 30 verbal questions in 30 minutes. :roll:

Quite a lot of professors in my field know and understand this. I think the numbers only matter when the school will be ranked at numbers factor into the ranking of that equation.

In my field numbers don't factor in, if they did I probably wouldn't have been considered by a top 10. For everyone outside of the life sciences I really don't see why they even bother to have us take the GRE, they should just use our GPA and statement of purpose, instead of making us take up time and space to explain why our poor GRE scores should not factor negatively in an admissions decision...blah blah blah

[underdog]

they are no indicator of how you are going to do in grad school. Candidates should be judged on their academic merits, rather than their ability to answer 30 verbal questions in 30 minutes. It takes a lot longer to write a good paper or thesis, and we have yet to imagine how much endurance it is going to take to write a good dissertation. :roll:

I agree here. As we all know, writing a good paper requires many more critical thinking skills, endurance skills, and determination than doing well on a GRE. Writing a dissertation? I am terrified... but I'm ready. I feel as if I'm readying my home for a hurricane.

[anewtypedude]

Actually, they've done a study on this. It turns out that there's a strong direct correlation between GRE score and the number of papers published by the time the students get their Ph.D.

[NO8DO]

Actually, I feel like a study has been done about everything and I question their validity.

I've had 3 thesis papers published in scholarly journals and I'm only just entering my first MA in the fall (my GRE scores were "horrendous" [really just avg., but I guess that's horrendous to some])

I'm not tooting my own horn in the least bit, just stating that studies obviously have many flaws - unless I'm just a unique exception, which I doubt.

[anewtypedude]

The study in question has been replicated many times. But since It's not a perfect correlation, there will always be exceptions.

[Minnesotan]

Please do not turn this thread into another discussion about the validity and usefulness of standardized testing. There are ten other threads that have been hijacked thus.