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Warning: boastful blog. Preceed with caution.
+ Show Spoiler +I wrote the GRE just a few hours ago. Before I went in I was nervous as fuck - I pretty much did not study at all. I also couldn't do the first two verbal questions... but at the end I actually got 550 on verbal and 800 on quant. :D:D:D I am ecstatic right now. I know it's not that great, but when I left my house for the test, I was expecting 300-400 on verbal. Happy happy. Anyways, enough of the bragging. If you wrote GRE before you'd know that at the end ETS allows you to send your GRE score to four different schools "for free". Following the list of schools as suggests on my other blog, I originally wanted to put down Chicago, Columbia, Michigan, and Duke. However, the software is really odd because it asks me to choose the state before choosing the school... Basically, I couldn't remember which state Duke University is in for the sake of my life  . After trying it a bunch of times, I gave up and put on a different university instead. DX Damn you ETS and your presumption of my knowledge in US geography.
   
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I got the exact same score you did lol.
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United States24613 Posts
I think the explanation for why you couldn't send your scores to Duke is more telling than your scores. Thus, I don't consider this a boastful blog post.
Regardless, good luck with your admissions!
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On October 31 2010 06:47 micronesia wrote: I think the explanation for why you couldn't send your scores to Duke is more telling than your scores. Thus, I don't consider this a boastful blog post.
Regardless, good luck with your admissions!
Hey look. At least I know University of Chicago is in Illinois!
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I took it the other day and didn't know what state Carnegie Mellon was in. My hunch was Pennsylvania and that turned out to be correct. I really only want to apply to USC though. Duke is in North Carolina; you can remember this easier if you know they have a very strong basketball rivalry with nearby University of North Carolina.
I thought I might have aced the verbal and I felt really bad about the math but I ended up with 710 verbal / 790 math so I dunno . Also I forgot to eat before hand and so when I was done I could hardly walk to my car.
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Any reason why you didn't use the internet to discover Duke's location?
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bleh, i have to take the GRE soon T_T
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I heard something went wrong with the GRE here in China and they had to null everyone's scores.
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On October 31 2010 07:52 selboN wrote: Any reason why you didn't use the internet to discover Duke's location?
There is no internet there.
On October 31 2010 07:56 deafhobbit wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Got me into a MA at Georgetown.
That is a really good score, but...
It seems to me that GRE is just formality. I don't see how getting a good score shows my academic ability - not for the general test, anyways.
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I don't think I've ever seen anyone on tl post gre scores that weren't 800quant substantially lower verbal. What a bunch of nerds we are
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generic routing encapsulation?
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Congratulations, the GRE isn't easy and a 800 on the quantitative is very good. I scored well on mine and am in the graduate school I wanted to be in. Great job!
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On October 31 2010 07:56 deafhobbit wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Got me into a MA at Georgetown.
fuck... jealous >_>
Georgetown is my top choice, taking the GRE in 11 days T_T;;
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On October 31 2010 08:41 Sufficiency wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2010 07:52 selboN wrote: Any reason why you didn't use the internet to discover Duke's location? There is no internet there. That is a really good score, but... It seems to me that GRE is just formality. I don't see how getting a good score shows my academic ability - not for the general test, anyways.
the gre is entirely a formality, and for the general tests at least from the school admissions ive talked to they literally just have two piles, people who score over a certain range and those who dont lol. And the verbal cut off is verrry lenient
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I'm thinking about re-taking the GRE to improve my score(760 verbal feels low for me, honestly). Should I care about trying to improve? Do Grad schools care that much? I did very well at the University and have great letters of recommendation, but I feel like I could do better on the GRE.
I never studied for the GRE or did any practice tests, so I wonder if anyone thinks it is a good idea. Thanks in advance!
(also, sorry if this derails a bit from the OP's post--not sure if I should make a new blog or not) :/
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I thought I was done with this garbage after the SAT -.-; The score format sounds wayyyy too familiar to be something completely different
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On October 31 2010 10:06 ChaosWielder wrote: I'm thinking about re-taking the GRE to improve my score(760 verbal feels low for me, honestly). Should I care about trying to improve? Do Grad schools care that much? I did very well at the University and have great letters of recommendation, but I feel like I could do better on the GRE.
I never studied for the GRE or did any practice tests, so I wonder if anyone thinks it is a good idea. Thanks in advance!
(also, sorry if this derails a bit from the OP's post--not sure if I should make a new blog or not) :/
lol... I dont know if it was your intention but your post came off as a very brag-in-disguise.
Now assuming you are serious...
Your verbal score matters for little honestly if youre trying to into grad school in sciences/maths/economics (I don't know what other fields look for). As for the quantitative section 760-800 is what you should be aiming for.
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On October 31 2010 10:06 ChaosWielder wrote: I'm thinking about re-taking the GRE to improve my score(760 verbal feels low for me, honestly). Should I care about trying to improve? Do Grad schools care that much? I did very well at the University and have great letters of recommendation, but I feel like I could do better on the GRE.
I never studied for the GRE or did any practice tests, so I wonder if anyone thinks it is a good idea. Thanks in advance!
(also, sorry if this derails a bit from the OP's post--not sure if I should make a new blog or not) :/ If you have great letters of recommendation (and by this I mean really great), then you will get into any grad school you want. From talking with various faculty on visits this seems to be the key factor the makes or breaks an admission decision.
760 is a damn good score, though probably not relevant about science/math schools, as pointed out earlier. I do think your quant score matters tons more, though proving you aren't English-illiterate certainly helps.
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On October 31 2010 10:06 ChaosWielder wrote: I'm thinking about re-taking the GRE to improve my score(760 verbal feels low for me, honestly). Should I care about trying to improve? Do Grad schools care that much? I did very well at the University and have great letters of recommendation, but I feel like I could do better on the GRE.
I never studied for the GRE or did any practice tests, so I wonder if anyone thinks it is a good idea. Thanks in advance!
(also, sorry if this derails a bit from the OP's post--not sure if I should make a new blog or not) :/
760 is godly.... I don't see why to do it again.
What kind of program are you applying for?
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16953 Posts
GRE scores aren't as useful as your undergrad research, to be honest. There's probably an expected score that you should be over, but beyond that, virtually all grad programs would rather know more about your undergrad experience than some test results.
Duke's stat grad program is very Bayesian oriented, as in CMU's. If you showed undergrad research in Bayesian stat methods, it would be much more useful to the admissions committee than a Verbal GRE score that's significantly higher.
By the way, the introductory grad course on probability/measure theory at Duke is absolute hell. It's usually taught by Robert Wolpert (who's a fucking genius) and problem sets take forever and are difficult as fuck.
EDIT: Here, try the midterm! (from last week): http://www.stat.duke.edu/courses/Fall10/sta205/exams/205f10mt.pdf
Class average was an 82. Can you beat the curve?
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Curse you all and your talent for quant btw.
Here I am trying to get into Econ and I'm demolishing the verbal section without effort but having trouble breaking 700 on quant ¬¬
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On October 31 2010 10:05 Divinek wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2010 08:41 Sufficiency wrote:On October 31 2010 07:52 selboN wrote: Any reason why you didn't use the internet to discover Duke's location? There is no internet there. On October 31 2010 07:56 deafhobbit wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Got me into a MA at Georgetown. That is a really good score, but... It seems to me that GRE is just formality. I don't see how getting a good score shows my academic ability - not for the general test, anyways. the gre is entirely a formality, and for the general tests at least from the school admissions ive talked to they literally just have two piles, people who score over a certain range and those who dont lol. And the verbal cut off is verrry lenient
To my understanding, this is only true to a degree. Yes, most schools start with just a cut off score, but later on scores can be tie breakers for selective schools who need to cut down the number of applicants they're accepting. Likewise, how lenient the verbal cutoff is depends on the school and the program you're applying for, it's likely to be a lot lower for a math program than for, say, Political Science. Furthermore, at the point where an 800 in Q only gets you in the 94th percentile, high Q scores aren't that special for good programs in subjects where you'll be expected to do a lot of math.
All that said, the GRE is not a perfect predictor of grad school performance, but it does have a reasonably strong predictive power. GRE scores by themselves don't say much, but combined with undergrad GPA's, recommendations, submitted work, and experience it can give a decent picture of how you are likely to perform.
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That's actually what I got and was disappointed by my verbal score. 800, I thought, was easy for engineering majors cause the highest math they test you on is trig that you took in high school. GL on your apps.
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On October 31 2010 10:25 Entropic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2010 10:06 ChaosWielder wrote: I'm thinking about re-taking the GRE to improve my score(760 verbal feels low for me, honestly). Should I care about trying to improve? Do Grad schools care that much? I did very well at the University and have great letters of recommendation, but I feel like I could do better on the GRE.
I never studied for the GRE or did any practice tests, so I wonder if anyone thinks it is a good idea. Thanks in advance!
(also, sorry if this derails a bit from the OP's post--not sure if I should make a new blog or not) :/ lol... I dont know if it was your intention but your post came off as a very brag-in-disguise. Now assuming you are serious... Your verbal score matters for little honestly if youre trying to into grad school in sciences/maths/economics (I don't know what other fields look for). As for the quantitative section 760-800 is what you should be aiming for.
Yeah, I'm serious. I'm sorry if it came off as bragging, really--I suppose there was just no other way I could word the response. So, sorry about that. :/
I got 500 in quantitative and I'm looking at philosophy programs(not philosophy of logic or science, for those curious). I guess I'm just really nervous about the application process, seeing as how I have no idea in hell what I'll do if I don't get accepted.
Thanks for the info bbq. That was kind of my impression as well, but I just wanted to be sure(or reassure myself). I'm stressing like no other over this, so any info is appreciated.
(and, yeah, again hope this isn't too much of a derail)
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