studying for the GRE and working full time

[adstudent1107]

Hello, I'm a recent graduate of San Francisco State University with a BS in marketing. I really want to go to grad school as soon as possible and of course i know i have to get through the GRE first. I'm planning to take the revised version in November of this year (hopefully in time to submit it to University of Texas's deadline in December) and I also got offer a fully time internship position. I was wondering if it will be crazy to have a full time job as well as studying for the GRE at the same time. How many hour a day should i set aside for the GRE since if i take the job, I'll probably be tired from working (it's a long commute from home to work). Also i'm planning to take the GRE prep course at Kaplan. Is it worth it?

Any advise would be great

Khiem

[wreckofthehope]

Hello, I'm a recent graduate of San Francisco State University with a BS in marketing. I really want to go to grad school as soon as possible and of course i know i have to get through the GRE first. I'm planning to take the revised version in November of this year (hopefully in time to submit it to University of Texas's deadline in December) and I also got offer a fully time internship position. I was wondering if it will be crazy to have a full time job as well as studying for the GRE at the same time. How many hour a day should i set aside for the GRE since if i take the job, I'll probably be tired from working (it's a long commute from home to work). Also i'm planning to take the GRE prep course at Kaplan. Is it worth it?

Any advise would be great

Khiem

Whoa there! You sound really committed to doing well on the GRE, which is great, but you have LOADS of time... unless you anticipate scoring atrociously (are you terrible at test taking?) you have plenty of time to prepare slowly, methodically and much less intensely than you describe above.

I would suggest taking it earlier than November (depending on when your deadlines are) - I took it in late September, for early December deadlines. I was also working full time as well as doing a Master's degree full time while preparing for it.... you can definitely work and study for the GRE at the same time!

[Strangefox]

I agree with the previous poster. You can definetely work and study for GRE at the same time. Don't forget that it takes GRE scores some time to reach schools so if your deadlines are in December, taking GRE in November would be late (you might make it, but there might be unexpected delays and lots of stress).

If you have long commutes, can you use this time to study for GRE? How do you get to work? By car or by bus or by subway? If it's by car that may be more difficult since you need to have your eyes on the road, so no reading obviously. But on a train or on a bus you can learn words just fine! May be there are some CDs you can listen to that prepare you for GRE (never heard of them, but may be...) then you could use them in a car. But it's just an idea, actually there is no need to study while commuting. There is still enough time to prepare for GRE - if you start right now and spend at least a couple of hours a day studying.

I can't say anything about courses... I guess it all depends on how organized you are. I have got good results on GRE without any courses and a lot of people don't take them and get great scores. So it's all up to you. Just remember that courses cost money while if you study on your own you can find all materials online for free. And you can choose your own time to study, which is a big plus.

Good luck!

[GardeningGrad]

Hello, I'm a recent graduate of San Francisco State University with a BS in marketing. I really want to go to grad school as soon as possible and of course i know i have to get through the GRE first. I'm planning to take the revised version in November of this year (hopefully in time to submit it to University of Texas's deadline in December) and I also got offer a fully time internship position. I was wondering if it will be crazy to have a full time job as well as studying for the GRE at the same time. How many hour a day should i set aside for the GRE since if i take the job, I'll probably be tired from working (it's a long commute from home to work). Also i'm planning to take the GRE prep course at Kaplan. Is it worth it?

Any advise would be great

Khiem

I agree with wreckofthehope - you will have plenty of time to study for the GRE. It is a glorified SAT test - not a specialized test like MCATs or LSATs. I had a full-time job and took the test twice. Having a full-time job will help you structure and manage your studying for efficiency, rather than redundancy. Here's how I studied 15 hours/ week for the GREs while working 40 hours/ week: I studied during every lunch break (6 hours), went from work directly to a library/coffee shop on Tuesday and Thursday for 2 hours of studying (4 hours), reviewed vocab cards or did a practice set of math problems Mondays and Wednesdays (half-hour at a time - 1 hour), and either studied or took a practice test every Saturday (3-4 hours). It's do-able. Treat studying for the GREs as practice for time management in grad school!

Also - do try to take the test earlier in November, especially if your program deadlines are in December. Allow six weeks from the day you take the test until the first application deadline to ensure that the schools get your scores.

[mandarin.orange]

Hello, I'm a recent graduate of San Francisco State University with a BS in marketing. I really want to go to grad school as soon as possible and of course i know i have to get through the GRE first. I'm planning to take the revised version in November of this year (hopefully in time to submit it to University of Texas's deadline in December) and I also got offer a fully time internship position. I was wondering if it will be crazy to have a full time job as well as studying for the GRE at the same time. How many hour a day should i set aside for the GRE since if i take the job, I'll probably be tired from working (it's a long commute from home to work). Also i'm planning to take the GRE prep course at Kaplan. Is it worth it?

Any advise would be great

Khiem

I agree with other posters to try and schedule it earlier. I took it in November, and also had Dec deadlines. While you will know the score that day and can enter it on applications, ETS needs a 6-8 week margin for official reporting. Also, this left me with no room for retaking it.

I was working full-time as a HS teacher when I took it last fall, a job that regularly consumed 50-60 hrs/week for me, and here is how I found time to study: whenever we had half-days off for conferences or whatever, I'd devote that whole block of time to working through test prep books. I studied lots on weekends...disheartening as it was to put my social life waaay on the backburner and spend sunny Saturday afternoons indoors for a few weeks, these were the only large chunks of free time I had. Also, I was in the habit of carrying vocab lists and flashcards with me for times I had errands, was at the laudromat, DMV, or to read over lunch/dinner. "Dates" with my BF (who has an adv degree in math) consisted of working through math problems in the prep books. Lastly, I scheduled the test on a day I had off.

As far as taking the course goes, depends on how well you've done on ETS-based standardized tests in the past, either SAT or GRE practice tests. If you tend to struggle with standardized testing or grammar, then this may be worthwhile for learning strategies, esp. on the written portion, and providing you with structured practice, practice, practice.

[adstudent1107]

Wow thanks so much for the many replies. Yes I am committed to getting a high or at least a good decent score on the GRE since I can only take it one before the deadline approach. I was scared that if i took the internship i would be too crazy and tired from it and not much time to study. I have this thought of students who trying to prepare for the GRE have to study for like 8 hours a day or so. And thanks so much for the info on it took at least 6-8 weeks for the score to submit. UT deadline's is December 1st and I'm planning to take the GRE in November 3rd. Is it too late or should i change it to take it in late October? I really don't want to miss the deadline.

Khiem

[newms]

It's very doable. I prepared for the GRE while working full time. I did most of the preparation on weekends and some in the evenings on weekdays. What worked for me was to do practice tests while working through one of the GRE prep books. For the verbal section, studying vocabulary is the best way to boost your score, so I would study word lists - particularly the words I weren't familiar with on the practice tests. I think 2 months is enough time to properly prepare even if you are working full time, so if I were you I would schedule the test around late September. That way you could take the test again in October if you weren't satisfied with the first set of scores.

[starmaker]

I have this thought of students who trying to prepare for the GRE have to study for like 8 hours a day or so.

I feel like if you're spending 8 hours a day studying for the GRE, you're taking way too much time away from actually accomplishing things in the world, including things that grad school adcoms like, like research or other relevant work experience.

I prepped for the GRE while working full-time. Admittedly, I also didn't do that much prep. But I did do four practice quant sections and four practice verbal sections, and study vocab, over about three weeks.

[adstudent1107]

It good to know because this is a really good internship position that i don't want to pass up on, especially it might help me boost my resume for grad school. Think i might take the GRE late October and if I'm not satisfied with my score, then i can take it in early November again. Hopefully that will keep them enough time to submit my scores to the school. I also heard one of my co-worker said that even though the school have a deadline, you can push it to a month to send your score. Like if UT deadline for application is December 1st, as long as i can take the GRE before December 1st and ask them to give me a short period of extension. Have any of you done this before?

Khiem

[sarakeet]

I don't know about asking schools to wait for your scores, but I'd recommend taking it earlier too... You've seen this schedule, right?

(http://www.ets.org/g...eral/scores/get)

I'm going to spend a little over two months preparing, also while working full time. At the moment, I'm studying 4-5 days a week, an average of 2 hours a day on the days I study, although I need to ratchet it up a little soon... In addition to that, I study vocabulary from the Barron's GRE Vocabulary book or iPhone apps and read dense books that include lots of GRE words during my 1.5+ hours of commuting each day.

Good luck! But seriously, it would make me way too nervous to wait until the last minute to take it!

Edited July 2, 2011 by sarakeet

[adstudent1107]

oh wow i didn't see that link at all, thanks for the link. It would help me figure out my test schedule more.

[long_time_lurker]

As soon as you can, take the practice test provided by ETS. It will give you an idea of how much work you need.

I did pretty well out of the gate so I knew I didn't need much work, and only with the verbal. I only had a month to study and also work full time, so I did a couple hours a couple times a week with the vocab lists and then a few hours on the weekend doing practice. So probably 8 hours a week for 5 weeks. It was absolutely plenty of prep. Like someone else said, it's a glorified SAT and it does not require hundreds of hours of work.