The Grad School Chronicles From Application to Graduation. I hope.

I finally got my official GRE scores back. They were the same as the “unofficial” ones that I got right after I took the test. For the verbal, I got a 590 which was in the 83 percentile. I got a 710 for the quantitative which is in the 73 percentile. For my analytical writing score I got a 4.5.

I’m pretty happy with the score that I got for the verbal part of the test. The “Interpreting Your GRE Scores” document that they sent along with the scores stated that the mean for this score in Engineering is 468. Even in the Humanities the mean is 545, so I guess I did pretty good for an engineer.

The Quantitative score I got, 710, is right about par with the Engineering mean of 719. I actually thought I had bombed this section since I basically ran out of time and guessed a whole bunch. I got really good scores in the practice tests, but I guess I was just really nervous for the test. Hopefully the 710 is good enough for the schools I’m applying to.

The analytical writing score of 4.5 is also fairly average. The mean for engineers is 4.2. They only give the scores in .5 increments, though. I thought I had done a better job of writing, myself. I tried putting good arguments and whatnot into my essays. Oh well, I guess 4.5 is really nothing to be upset about.

Overall, I thought the GRE was one of the most stressful things I’ve had to endure. The score you earn in the GRE is definitely a quantitative indicator that schools look at. Having said that, I’m still really skeptical as to how useful it really is. It feels to me like something you need to take for the sake of taking it (and paying $130). I really do hope that I’ll never have to take another GRE in my life again.

I took the GRE a little more than a week ago. While I want to hold off on writing about it until I see my final scores, I will say that it’s really important to prepare for the GRE before taking it. The best way to do this is to take practice tests. The best ones are those that tell you not only which questions you got incorrect, but why you missed them.

I went through a lot of these practice tests before taking the real GRE. I really think they do make a difference, especially when it comes to feeling comfortable while taking the test.

I thought I’d make a list of practice tests that you can use to study for the GRE, since I found them useful myself.

• The Princeton Review – This is a simple web based practice GRE, and the first one I took. It’s free to take as long as you do a quick registration with the Princeton Review. This practice test tells you how long you took on each question and gives you feedback on each answer (and why each wrong answer is incorrect).
• GRE Powerprep Software – This software is similar to the Princeton Review, and both are very similar to the actual GRE. This software is free with registration, and includes two tests and some focused practice sections. I found the focused sections to be very useful in preparing for the test.
• GRE Practice General Test -This isn’t a computer practice test, but a paper one. It’s a sample of the test you would take if you were to do the non computer one. What’s useful with this is it includes a few samples of the writing test, along with some critiques and suggestions on how to make the analytical section better.
• Kaplan GMAT/GRE/LSAT 2006 Platinum – While this software isn’t free, it really does help a lot. The Kaplan software includes practice tests and tutorials on how to answer questions, even if you don’t know the answer. While this is useful, it really makes the GRE feel like more of a test on how well you can take tests, and not on general knowledge.

Are there any resources that I’ve missed? If so, please let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post if I find that they’re useful.