What else to prepare?

[Soylatte2011]

Hi Everyone, I am preparing for grad school now.

I took the GRE in Oct 2010. I scored 1230 total (450 V, 780 Q). My verbal score is not so great since English is not my first language.

I got a BA in communication studies, but I decided to major industrial and organizational psychology.

The program that I am trying to apply is very competitive and challenging. The department website even requires students to keep full-time status and discourages to have outside work because it is very difficult. I currently work full-time and take about 2 prerequisite classes. I technically have about 3 more classes to complete my prerequisites, but I feel that completing prerequisites and having decent GRE and recommendation letters do not prepare me enough for the program. I wanted to apply for Fall of 2012, but I decided to take extra year to prepare for the program by taking advance stats classes and being a research assistant.

I am a hard working student, but I feel that my language barrier and being non-psychology major previously really make it difficult for me to survive in grad school. How do or did you prepare for grad school?

Do you suggest a particular class?

Should I take the GRE again?

[harpyemma]

If you've decided to put off applying for another year, until the Fall 2013 round, then i would definitely advise you take the GRE again--in about a year or so. There's no reason why your verbal score wouldn't increase (and with it make you a far more competitive candidate) in that time: two years is plenty, especially with studying and practice, to improve your score quite substantially.