GRE Fail

[Slee721]

I'm a 4.0 student at Valparaiso University, on a research team at U of Notre Dame and applying to some PhD programs for psychology around the country. I have never bombed a test…ever..but just did on the most important one. I probably left at least 35% of the test blank. I have NO CLUE why I did that, and didn't guess. 

Final scores, 145V, 148Q. Kill me now. No time to retake before the apps are due. Please tell me there is still hope. 

[peachypie]

There are no other available test times in the month of November?  You should be able to get a spot within two weeks would be my guess.  I'd try very hard to try to get a spot if you can and submit it.  Sometimes schools will ask for unofficial on your application and then await your final results.  ETS is pretty quick, so if you can take it by Thanksgiving then ETS should get it to them shortly or soon after the earlier deadlines of December 1.

[bsharpe269]

I agree to retake even if it means contacting schools and asking if you can send a screenshot of scores or something and have official reports arrive a couple weeks late.

[columbia09]

He said he couldn't retake people what should this child do ? Here's what I say you do, don't retake the GRE because it'll be a waste of 200$ instead address I your application that your test scores do not reflect how you'll do in grad school. The GRE with the other standardized tests are useless ! They don't reflect ones performance in grad school, I got a 21 on the ACT and currently have a 3.83 GPA with two majors (science majors) and a minor. They are useless and this country is pathetic for giving them so much weight !!!!!

[ashiepoo72]

OP - I agree with bsharpe269 and peachypie. Regardless of how we personally feel about the GRE, to a certain extent it matters and if you want to give yourself the best shot you should try to retake it and send the verbal/quant scores to your programs with a promise that the official score will come shortly. The fact that you've never bombed a test before indicates you were just nervous and perfectly capable of doing well on the GRE. Call up those grad admins and see what you can work out. Do all your programs have an early Dec deadline?

Columbia09 - I know you're upset about the GRE, but trashing it is not going to help you or the OP succeed during application season. No one forces anyone to apply to graduate school. It's an entirely voluntary process. No one need waste their time or money on the GRE if they don't want to. Much like mandatory fingerprinting and TB testing when working for a secondary school, the GRE is just a hoop every applicant has to jump through.

[columbia09]

OP - I agree with bsharpe269 and peachypie. Regardless of how we personally feel about the GRE, to a certain extent it matters and if you want to give yourself the best shot you should try to retake it and send the verbal/quant scores to your programs with a promise that the official score will come shortly. The fact that you've never bombed a test before indicates you were just nervous and perfectly capable of doing well on the GRE. Call up those grad admins and see what you can work out. Do all your programs have an early Dec deadline?

Columbia09 - I know you're upset about the GRE, but trashing it is not going to help you or the OP succeed during application season. No one forces anyone to apply to graduate school. It's an entirely voluntary process. No one need waste their time or money on the GRE if they don't want to. Much like mandatory fingerprinting and TB testing when working for a secondary school, the GRE is just a hoop every applicant has to jump through.

Being as that may, the only advice I've received is to retake it. Even if that may be the best advice, some of us, like the OP, can't retake it so what should we do is what I'm asking  

[ashiepoo72]

Obviously, as I said in a response to your post (so you did receive advice other than just to retake) you can call the programs and ask them for their suggestions. You can polish  apply and hope for the best. You might get in regardless of your scores. You can wait a year and be diligent in studying for the exam so you can raise your score. Honestly, I did not want to retake the GRE, but I took the exam in June to give myself several more months to do so if my scores were really low. If you do not get in this round I suggest you do the same.

 

This process is stressful and terrifying at times, but as I approach my application deadlines I've realized how much of it actually is in our hands. We write a statement of purpose and can take as little or as much time on that. We can show it to as many or as few people as we want. We can edit it once or ten times. Same with the writing sample. 

 

Yes, we can't control our past grades, but if someone has a bad GPA they can take a year off and take open enrollment grad classes to show they can handle grad level work. My undergrad GPA was mediocre--not terrible, but nothing special--so I opted to get an MA before applying to PhDs. Taking several years off also distances an applicant from a mediocre undergrad record. 

 

We get LORs. We don't control what our rec writers write, but we do control our performance in their classes, how we maintained relationships with them and who we choose to write LORs. 

 

We take the GRE, which we can study for as much or as little as we like. A professor encouraged me to take the test seriously. She said it's not the most important aspect, but not to underestimate it. I studied for it for at least 3 months, focusing on the areas that matter the most to my field, and gave myself plenty of time to retake. Had I waited until November and bombed it, I would've applied to programs anyway and hoped for the best. I also would've been proactive and contacted the programs to get their input.

 

As someone finishing up an MA, and from what I've read everywhere on this board as I began my (sometimes obsessive) research into applying to PhDs back in January (yes, I treated applications like I was planning a wedding and gave myself a year), graduate school is HARD. It's sometimes demoralizing, always stressful and time consuming. There were times I felt I could not cut it in my program, other times I felt on top of the world. One thing remained constant: my desire to do whatever it takes to get into a PhD program and continue my intellectual journey. Applications are just one small, short-term step in an extended journey that will be challenging on the best of days, and much more challenging than a standardized test. If you really want this, you need to be proactive and grab the proverbial bull by its horns.