Grad School/GRE
 

I'm now a senior in college, and I'll soon have to start worrying about GRE's and grad school. Does anyone have advice for choosing grad schools? There are a LOT that I'm interested in, but I don't know how many I should apply to. I'm also looking for a way to make myself stand out a little bit. I have an average GPA (3.5) and some experience. I'm not sure if it'll be enough to get me into the one good school I want (Purdue). I'm a speech pathology major, and from what I hear it can be tricky trying to get in. Also, has anyone taken the GRE's? Are they hard? Any tips for studying? I have "GRE for Dummies". Hopefully it'll help!

I took the GREs several times in the past few years. They are almost like the SATs (I took those twice back in 1990 and that has changed a lot since I last took them), only harder. Instead of the Test of Standard Written English, the GREs have the Analytic section. You can download practice test and preparation through the following websites below. There is a book, I recommend though the title escapes me at this time that gives a very thorough preparation that includes a big vocabulary list with definitions. GOOD LUCK!!!

www.gre.org

www.ets.org

Oooh...maybe I have a chance! I've always been decent with writing skills but horrible with analytic! The thing I most feared with the GRE was the math portion. I haven't taken a math class since my freshmen year, and that was only elem. stats. If the GRE focused on speech pathology material I'd be ok, but it doesn't.

Thanks for all of your advice! I'll probably be taking the GRE mid-fall.

Now I just need to decide on where I'd like to go for grad school! :)

I also plan on attending grad school. I'm a junior right now, so how much in advance should I take the GRE?

I'm a senior, and I'm taking my GRE's this fall. My only beef is that I'm a science major, so I've taken nothing but calculus classes. How the hell do they expect me to remember algebra and geometry?!?:mad:

Most schools suggest giving yourself 6 weeks before your application is due to give the testing service time to send your score. And now, you can take the general GRE on the computer. so you can pick whenever you want to take it. I'm taking it in either September or October, or maybe even both.

I took mine in August last year, right before senior year--just before they got rid of the analytical MC questions. My applications weren't due until December and January, so it gave me enough time to retake it if I needed to (I didn't). I would suggest taking it when you aren't taking classes, in order to focus on it entirely. Because I hadn't taken geometry since 8th grade, I needed some time to review. Plus, I was insanely busy first semester, and I don't think I would have done as well. I studied from June to August during the summer, stopping entirely the week before the test.

If you're very very concerned about the math section, both Princeton Review and Kaplan offer online reviews just for math, at a fraction ($20-100) of what it would cost to take a full course in person (last time I checked, the least expensive ones were $400). Since the test is on computer, this might work. I'm not even sure if you can still take the paper GRE in the United States--they are trying to phase it out completely.

My best advice to you is to request the information from the schools that you are interested in first and see what their GPA, GRE requirements are. Then you can go into the GRE knowing what you need to make. Being that you have a high GPA, you will have some breathing room on the GRE. Basically, the lower your GPA, the better your GRE score must be.