Any advise of low verbal score

[aaa57]

I wish to apply for MS management science and engineering at Stanford. My background is electrical engineering and my GRE is Q 800 and V 330. Any idea how can I make my application strenghned? Is there any chance of getting admission? thanks for your help

[Instigate]

Are you international student? Are you gonna take the TOEFL? Also, consider sharing this information with your recommenders, so that they can vauch that you have good verbal skills.

[emmm]

I am really worried that the verbal score is too low to get you admission -- even as an international student. Do you know if they have any school-wide minimum?

[aaa57]

Thanks for your replies, yes I'm international student I was waived of taking TOEFL again as I got a MS in electrical engineering from a canadian university. Yet I am disappointed with my GRE, verbal. Would this let them down? how low is acceptable for verbal?

[aaa57]

Folks,

how is the importance of writing section? can it compensate a low verbal ? any suggestions or past experiences are appreciated

[psychdork]

I have to agree with emmm, I have a feeling your verbal score might be too low to gain admission even if everything else on your application was exceptional. To answer your above question, in some cases yes a high writing score can off-set a poor verbal score (I was told this by a prof on one of the adcoms last year), but that is usually if the verbal score is mediocre (say 500 range) not 300. If your programs require a writing sample, then make sure you send them an excellent one, and like one of the above posters said, make sure your LOR writers can vouch for your verbal skills.

[aaa57]

Thanks for your reply, I am indeed practicing to take another GRE with its revised format. However, in the mock tests I am running out of time in verbal section--let's say 4 to 3 last questions--and the total estimated score is not good enough. It's really disapppointing for me. How could I improve this weakness in verbal? I greally appreciate any advices to upgrade my verbal skill.

[midnight]

aaa57: In your case, I think you may just need to buckle down and cram vocabulary. Check out the Barron's vocab list or similar and study as much as you can. I know that it's stupid and will feel like a waste of time, but serious vocab memorization will probably help raise your score by a significant amount. Make sure you memorize synonyms as well so you can get the sentence equivalence questions right.

Take context clues *very seriously* when practicing for all of the verbal section. Context is truly everything now.

And if you're about to run out of time on the actual test, complete the remaining questions by guessing. Don't leave any questions blank.

Finally, make sure your SOP is flawless and convincing and that your LORs can attest to your skills as well. You want the adcoms to know that you can communicate in strong, fluent English (which I can see here is the case!).

[aaa57]

Thanks a lot, memorizing how many words you are suggesting is assuring that would get the entire vocab required questions answered? I apprecite for suggesting any word-list you had used in the past.

[Bearcat1]

Kaplan makes flashcards (I think they are ~$12 on Amazon) for the verbal section and I used them the second time and raised my score almost 200 points. I highly recommend them!

[aaa57]

I bought 500-word flashcards of Kaplan, is that good enough for a score above 155 in verbal?

[Bearcat1]

If you work on them for a few weeks, I think so.

[dendy]

Have you also been practicing using a review book? I used the general princeton one and the strategies it suggested were really useful--like the process of elimination and figuring out if you're looking for a "positive" or "negative" word. You need to learn to game the system, so to speak--but really it's just being very aware of context. I ended up with a 166 - 96% but I'm a native speaker so ymmv.

And memorizing the word list is also invaluable.

Edited December 1, 2012 by dendy

[cthulhu]

I'm also an international student and was really worried about my performance in the verbal part. I practiced with the Kaplan flashcards and the Princeton Review book (the strategies are really helpful!) for around 4 weeks, but wasn't very successful at it I ended up with 158 (77%) on the verbal section and hope that it's ok. For my part, I was really happy about the result. My TOEFL scores are fine, too, so I guess it's acceptable.

Good luck, aa57!

ps: First post, yay!

[aaa57]

Many many thanks I really appreciate your helps

[rickytran344]

I really don't think flash cards will help that much, unless it is strictly vocabulary that accounts for your lower verbal score. But it sounds more like the problem is reading comprehension, which is in part based on vocabulary but also your ability to identify the main idea of a paragraph. Also, vocabulary won't really help with sentence correction section, which is all about grammar. Rather than working with flash cards, I would read the paper and magazines daily and work on creating 1 sentence summaries of each paragraph (even if only in your mind).

[aaa57]

rickytran344 : we are talking about verbal in GRE rather than GMAT. I think sentence correction is in GMAT, am I right? By the way thanks for your comment

[aaa57]

I have almost done with flash cards but I feel it may not cover all the words required for verbal I encountered some questions in Princeton that needed knowing new words !!! I appreciate it if you could give me some last minute word of wisdom

 

Many many thanks

[aaa57]

Folks, many thanks for your help, I took the test today and ended up with V 149 and Q 164. Now awaiting AW to come out

What do you think if schools tolerate not native English speakers for a low verbal ?