Help compare schools and relieve some GRE stress!

[chimi42]

I've recently applied to Rutgers, University of Rhode Island, Penn State, and Umass Boston

The first three schools is for their Labor Relations program, Umass Boston is for Dispute Resolution. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with these programs or is applying to some of the same schools.

I also did not do so hot on my GRE's

I got a 430 Verbal and 580 Quant (I did plenty of practice tests and my lowest verbal grade was a 510 on any of them) i will be taking them over on the 1st and i KNOW i will get at least a 500 on the verbal. I expect my essay scores to be around a 5.

I guess what i really need is some support since this verbal score is eating away at my sanity. The good thing is i offered to send work i've previously done at my undergrad school to these schools and they all seem very appreciative of that. I also have a pretty good resume, i've done 4 internships while at school and have 4 different work experiences to draw from (2 of them extremely relevant for the major).

Sorry guys i know i kinda rambled a bit i'm just stressing out right now.

[Michelley262003]

I think the GRE is just another silly hoop you have to go through to get where you want.

The GRE is stupid. It's a waste of money and time. It really illustrates very little. People on this forum stress way too much about it. Don't waste your time worrying about something as insignificant as a standardized test.

I hope you do well (whenever it is you take it)

[liszt85]

I've recently applied to Rutgers, University of Rhode Island, Penn State, and Umass Boston

The first three schools is for their Labor Relations program, Umass Boston is for Dispute Resolution. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with these programs or is applying to some of the same schools.

I also did not do so hot on my GRE's

I got a 430 Verbal and 580 Quant (I did plenty of practice tests and my lowest verbal grade was a 510 on any of them) i will be taking them over on the 1st and i KNOW i will get at least a 500 on the verbal. I expect my essay scores to be around a 5.

I guess what i really need is some support since this verbal score is eating away at my sanity. The good thing is i offered to send work i've previously done at my undergrad school to these schools and they all seem very appreciative of that. I also have a pretty good resume, i've done 4 internships while at school and have 4 different work experiences to draw from (2 of them extremely relevant for the major).

Sorry guys i know i kinda rambled a bit i'm just stressing out right now.

I think you should be more concerned about your quant score than the verbal one. It is accepted that the GRE contains words that really test just your memory and not language skills. So a 500 on the verbal is good enough but you should strive for at least a 600-650 on the quant. It will boost your chances so much, trust me. It is not too hard to do it. I'm sure you'll be able to achieve that with 1-2 hours of work everyday. You have one month and I suggest you spend some time on the quant section. It will help you immensely, esp if you have a higher quant than the other applicants. The quant section tests your logical reasoning skills more than math itself. So I guess they always appreciate a higher quant score.

Opinions may differ but this is mine.

[europegrad]

I agree with the post above.

Some GRE words are quite difficult, and the percentile for any given score in Verbal section will be far higher than Quantitative one. I don't have the numbers here (I took GMAT instead for a Finance doctorate program), but I'm sure that a 800 perfect score in Quantitative section will be on the 90-low-something percentile, while 650 in Verbal might be well beyond 90th percentile.

I myself prefer GMAT-style questions, as I think its verbal section is far more driven towards analitical thinking than GRE's. Unfortunately, only business-related applicants have, most of the times, option to choose between GMAT and GRE.

I'll post a broadly view of mine on the importance of GRE/GMAT on Application forum.