In Desperate Need for Motivation

[jean21]

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now.  I took the GRE last year and was pretty happy with my score (157V, 159Q, 4.0AW).  I thought that would be good enough to get me into a decent school.  Apparently I was wrong.  I'm now trying to study for the GRE again, and finding it very difficult to get motivated, especially after taking a diagnostic verbal test and doing awful.  I'm about to give up on the retest and instead work on improving other aspects of my application (such as my personal statement).  This is stupid, right?  I should suck it up and really buckle down on studying if I want to get into my dream school.  However, the feeling of not doing much better this time (or worse, getting a lower score....) is making it REALLY hard.  What are you guys doing to stay motivated for a retest?  How do you know when a retest is necessary, or if spending your time on other aspects of the application is smarter?  I would hate to spend two months studying and only improve my score by a couple of points.

 

I guess I should mention what my dream program's average GRE score is..... 162V, 160Q.  I'm hoping that the fact that I work in a lab at this school, and will have recommendations from professor's in this program, will outweigh my below average GRE score. 

 

Sorry for the probably unanswerable questions, I'm just feeling really frustrated right now.  Any advice/motivation would be greatly appreciated!

[MikKar]

It happens sometimes that the university you aim for accepts the best score out of all your attempts (though more than 2 will look awkward). Don't think about anything else, you know what the exam is like and you probably know where you are more likely to really improve your score, just focus on that.

[Quantum Buckyball]

Are you sure that by having a high GRE score alone would get you into a decent program? I think your score is fine, you need to focus on publications if you don't have any, or relevant research experiences. For most of biological/physical science programs, the admission committee tends to focus more on your LoRs, SoP, and other accomplishments because they know that most of the GRE questions are pretty irrelevant to the scientific community.

[newms]

Are you sure that by having a high GRE score alone would get you into a decent program? I think your score is fine, you need to focus on publications if you don't have any, or relevant research experiences. For most of biological/physical science programs, the admission committee tends to focus more on your LoRs, SoP, and other accomplishments because they know that most of the GRE questions are pretty irrelevant to the scientific community.

I agree with this. Your GRE scores are one of the least important parts of your application. How strong do you think your recommendation letters and your statement of purpose are? Those are much more important than your GRE.

[Abc_adams]

I second the previous posters. There is the whole diminishing returns to efforts on GRE preparation and it probably isn't worth it. A couple of great recos and good research work can offset an average GRE score for sure. Work on that. It'll probably be a healthy break from the grind of GRE. After a few months, you can rethink the GRE if you wish.

[jean21]

Thanks for the comments.  I agree that good LoRs and SoP are probably more important than your GRE score.  I think that's why I'm having so much trouble focusing.  I currently don't have any publications and I think that was my biggest downfall in my applications last year.  For now, I think I'm going to work on my research and tailoring my SoP for each school I apply to.  Hopefully that will be enough.