Advice on my GRE score and study method

[ladymentha]

Background information: I am 23 years old and graduated in 2010 with a BS in Business Administration. I graduated with an overall GPA of 3.5. I want to pursue a Master's degree in Library Information Science. I do have some volunteer experience in a library setting.

Basically, I only want to go to one school: UCLA. They have a very good program with a lot of internship opportunities, which is very important in this economy. In addition, I want to go to school in-state. There is only two MLIS program in California.

I am only planning to apply to UCLA. I know it is silly but I don't want to go to any other universities. Plus, I can't justify paying out-of-state tutition for this degree.

UCLA requires a GRE score and states that most of the students that get admitted into their program scored in the 75% percentile (580V, 700Q, 5 AWA). They also have a 70% acceptance rate, so everyone who apply must be pretty intelligent?

I took the GRE today and my scores are 380V, 680Q, 4AWA (My guess). I know. It is a very low score. I am planning to retake the GRE again in September.

I didn't really study for this test because I didn't have a lot of time. I used to work about 50-60 hours a week as part of the Americorps program. It was a very rewarding experience but I seriously don't have time to study. This position ended in mid-June and my GRE test was on June 30. I had about 2.5 weeks to study.

I knew I was going to get a low Verbal score since I didn't really study the vocabulary list. My goals for taking this test were to gain some experience and break the 1000 points threshold.

Questions: I am very bad at vocabulary. It has been a weakness of mine since I started elementary school, thus, the low Verbal score. Does anyone have any good strategies for learning and retaining vocabulary words?

What is the new 75% percentile for the new GRE?

Final advices to a young, inexperienced, poor graduate?

[Mal83]

I mean it sounds like you're quite set on the school and if it's UCLA or nothing then you'll have to be content with the big possibility of not going to grad school in the spring. I'm not trying to scare or discourage you, but if you're not willing to go to grad school if you can't go to UCLA then that means that you've already made the decision to accept that, which is fine. Lots of great applicants just don't get in simply because there aren't enough spots. My school received 2100 applications for fall 2011 and 350 were offered admission. But a 70% acceptance is pretty high, it means that they accept 70% of the total applicant pool, which to me seems unusually high but good for you. So looks like you have a really good shot if you meet their requirements. As far as the GRE goes, I'm not sure how important it is for your program, but when a website says that "a typical score for the accepted applicant is ---V and ---Q" it doesn't necessarily mean that that's the requirement or cut off. It's just what's typical. Some people on this forum scored below their program's average and got in. I scored below the average at my top choice and was admitted. I know someone who scored at least 200 points below the combined average for his program and it's one of the top schools in his field. But a better indication of the possibility of acceptance is the overall application package you put together. Very good areas of your application can offset areas that aren't so good and everyone's application is different. Schools weigh the areas differently also, for some, letters of recommendation are more important than the GRE or relevant work experience can offset a low GPA, etc. But in your case I would stick with the plan to retake the GRE, 380V as you know is very low. I wouldn't be comfortable with anything less than a 500. However since you're only applying to one school you want to make sure you meet every criteria that are set if not go beyond. I'd say your Quant is pretty good though.

To study the vocabulary I made flash cards for every single word I didn't know. I made one for every word in the Kaplan review book as well as many out of the Kaplan vocab only book. I still have the stacks of flash cards. It's a simple and old method but it works fine for me because I'm good at memorizing, I learned a ton of words that way, but I studied them constantly for months.I'd make like 10-20 in one sitting to learn, add them to the review pile and maybe the next day I'd run through all of them to keep up the review process. What I liked about Kaplan was that aside from the 500 most common words and definitions, there were pages of other vocab words that were grouped together in synonyms so if you learn them that way and remember that an unknown word on the test is similar in meaning to one that you know then you have a much better chance at choosing correctly. For example there might be 10 words that all have a similar meaning to "anger" and they're listed together, I made flash cards for them in a particular color pen and looked up the definitions for each one and wrote it on the card, that's part of the learning process for me, so I got to know many of the definitions by heart but some of them I could recall the meaning just because I knew they were in the "anger" group. If this seems tedious it's because it was, but I had the time to do it and I was serious about it. I made it an almost daily activity. I kind of liked doing it, I thought it was a good thing to expand my vocabulary and for that reason it was easier for me to get into it, I hated every second of studying for the quant section. You have a good 2 months before you redo it and I would say you can learn a hell of a lot if you commit to it everyday. I would also say to not spend much time on the quant section, maybe just choose one area of math that gave you the most trouble on the test, but your verbal is what really needs most of your attention. I also went page by page in the review book so I better understood how to do the analogies because I'll tell you those are no joke. But it's very important to get that vocab down because ultimately you'll get through the questions faster and with more ease if you know what the 2 words in the analogy mean as well as the meanings of the words in the answer choices. I found the reading comprehension to be a real chore so I don't have much in the way of advice for that section. Anyway, hope that helps a little, don't hesitate to ask anything else.