Stupid GRE and HKS

[mppapplicant]

Hi guys! OK, I sat for the stupid GRE and got 600V (86%) and 740Q (80%); I thought I did OK for an international student (the Verbal part is a little below the average I have read about but still, not bad). And I called today to learn my AW score which is 4,0! How is that possible I can't even begin to understand (considering I got a 30 on TOEFL and I already have a Masters Degree from an Ivy League School in the US with honors). Is there anyone out there who can tell me how much analytical writting counts? Should I be really worried that because of this I will have a serious problem with my application (I am not saying that everything else is perfect, but I'd rather there were problems with other parts than with the GRE).

Thanks in advance for your time!!!

[carpecc]

Mppapplicant,

From talking to schools, admissions don't care that much about the AWA, but might take notice of a "low" score.

Admissions get to read your AWA, so if they the score sets off any alarms with them they'll just take a look at it. Sometimes if you write an essay that's good, but out of line with the GRE formula, it will receive a low score. If you feel pretty good about what you wrote in your AWA, I wouldn't worry too much about it too much.

[jacib]

Hi guys! OK, I sat for the stupid GRE and got 600V (86%) and 740Q (80%); I thought I did OK for an international student (the Verbal part is a little below the average I have read about but still, not bad). And I called today to learn my AW score which is 4,0! How is that possible I can't even begin to understand (considering I got a 30 on TOEFL and I already have a Masters Degree from an Ivy League School in the US with honors). Is there anyone out there who can tell me how much analytical writting counts? Should I be really worried that because of this I will have a serious problem with my application (I am not saying that everything else is perfect, but I'd rather there were problems with other parts than with the GRE).

Thanks in advance for your time!!!

Don't worry, many programs don't even look at that score at all (a few programs are even bold enough to say so in their FAQs). Your writing sample is way more important. My father is a professor, and he got professors at other school to send him their average GRE scores. Some of his colleagues didn't even bother sending the AW scores and some of the ones that did send the AW average wrote comments as if there were only two scores ("A low score in section could be counterbalanced with a high score in the other"). In all likelihood, all social science programs probably treat it similarly; I'd imagine humanities programs would generally ignore it, too. Maybe science programs might use it as a tie breaker, but your 86% in Verbal matters a lot more even there. Don't fret.

[greendiplomat]

Hi guys! OK, I sat for the stupid GRE and got 600V (86%) and 740Q (80%); I thought I did OK for an international student (the Verbal part is a little below the average I have read about but still, not bad). And I called today to learn my AW score which is 4,0! How is that possible I can't even begin to understand (considering I got a 30 on TOEFL and I already have a Masters Degree from an Ivy League School in the US with honors). Is there anyone out there who can tell me how much analytical writting counts? Should I be really worried that because of this I will have a serious problem with my application (I am not saying that everything else is perfect, but I'd rather there were problems with other parts than with the GRE).

Thanks in advance for your time!!!

If you have a Masters Degree from an Ivy, chances are, you can write. As long as your SOPs don't suggest otherwise, you'll be fine. (Also worth considering is that you'll probably get more lenience given that you're an international student.)

[jndaven]

One of the graders for the writing section is a computer. Enough said!

[mppapplicant]

Thanks guys for the support; I have to say I was pretty sad with that stupid result but what you said to me actually made me feel better! But now I have another question as I didn't know what jndaven said: How surreal is that a computer grades the writing section?

[jndaven]

Well, the second grader is a real person. The computer software checks for common spelling and grammatical errors, length, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc. If you read the information on the GRE website about their ScoreItNow service for practice AWA sections, they use software to give a statistically accurate estimate of what your GRE writing score would be--because they use that software to grade real essays.

[greendiplomat]

Well, the second grader is a real person. The computer software checks for common spelling and grammatical errors, length, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc. If you read the information on the GRE website about their ScoreItNow service for practice AWA sections, they use software to give a statistically accurate estimate of what your GRE writing score would be--because they use that software to grade real essays.

Ok, out of context, I thought we were talking about a student in the second grade.

In all seriousness, though, my question is why they don't have the PowerPrep software programmed to grade practice essays. *is bitter*.

Edited January 6, 2010 by greendiplomat

[spottedtoad]

That's hilarious. If the human gives a higher score than the computer, it's just averaged together, then?

I think it would be interesting to put in some Emerson or Thoreau essays and see where they came out on the scale.

It's kind of a reverse Turing test...the computer is grading us to see how much we sound like a human being.