Applying to grad school

That’s honestly not too bad, especially if he can pull a 4.5 or so on the writing. The verbal is generally the least valuable and least considered (“grammar trivia” section to many colleges) and the math is pretty good (good enough not to be a defect in the application, probably around 90th percentile score). If he’s not satisfied then he should certainly study and try again, but there’s nothing particularly weak about that score.

His mind may still be programmed to think in terms of SAT/ACT percentiles. Remember those are high school kids some of whom might not have even gone to college and some of those who did, never finished. Now he’s comparing himself to university graduates (or soon to be) who are academically driven enough that they want to continue their education. The air is thinner up there.

He is 88th percentile for quant, but only at about 37th percentile on verbal. This is extremely close to where @xraymancs suggested for quant, still low on verbal, but all in all he improved his position and he should be in the running. Good luck!

@cosmicfish this was the first GRE he has taken. The prior score mentioned was a practice test.
He feels like he knows enough to get a 170 on the math but doesn’t have the timed test skill. Verbal is another thing but this was the worst score he’s gotten compared to practice.
Hopefully it will seem better in the morning but today he has that feeling that he has to reassess his goals, and a general feeling that his success and efforts have been for naught. @eyemgh good point about the SAT vs GRE, frustrating though, his SAT would not have predicted the success he has had in college.
@NeoDymium I hope you are right!

Verbal, and to a lesser extent quantitative, is a test where you have to have a review class (online is fine) that will teach you the tricks of the test itself.

Sounds like he’d be more at ease with a higher score though, so I’d recommend retaking it.

You certainly don’t need test preparation or coaching for the GRE. It is certainly a test that is susceptible to such strategizing, but most of the people I knew in grad school never took a test prep course.

Here is the situation. He had not looked at the GRE until winter break. He spent the past three weeks spending about 4 hours a day on study, practice tests and learning vocabulary and this was the outcome. Whatever he does he can’t devote that kind of time to it during the semester. My thought is that if he does retake he needs a strategy for study. He would prefer self study. @boneh3ad did the people you know start from where he is? And do you have suggestions about how to self study since what he did didn’t get him where he wants to be? @NeoDymium taking a course is an option we (mom and dad) have kicked around. He is less on board with that but hasn’t completely shut it down for the verbal section.

Three weeks of semi-dedicated study time is plenty, as long as it’s done efficiently. If he remembers the vocabulary then he will be fine on that end. The verbal is really more about reading comprehension/POE than about knowing every vocabulary term.

IMO, an in-person course is a pretty severe waste of money and waste of time for anyone who is at least slightly intelligent. What I did back when I had to take the GRE was an online course, subsidized by the university, that offered videos and practice exams/quizzes. A self-serve option like that should not be phenomenally expensive (maybe in the $0-$200 range) and would give some pretty useful tips on how to solve it.

If his scores were significantly higher in practice than on the exam, then he needs to learn to overcome test anxiety. That’s a different issue.

Thanks @NeoDymium , for the verbal he said he felt pretty good about the vocab, there were 3 verbal sections, apparently one didn’t count, he felt good about two but one was really difficult, he was hoping for low 150s so perhaps that was the difference. As for quantatitive he has always made silly errors, in college he frequently has the highest grades on tests and classes, really,… the difference is having time to check work. If there are strategies for reading comprehension it seems that is what he needs to be looking at.

Does anyone have any suggestions for finding good quality practice tests either in book form or online.

In general, the best prep for exams like these is to do exams like these. Get access to tests, take one section a day, TIMED, and then go over the answers of BOTH the ones you get right and the ones you miss, in detail, so you understand completely how they arrived at the conclusion. It builds stamina, an internal pacing, and a strong familiarity with what you will see on the actual exam. At the end if the day, English, History, etc. majors take the same test too. Fast readers with large vocabulary are the ones sitting at the top of the verbal pile.

I am probably not the greatest person to ask in terms of GRE studying. I was very insecure about the strength of my application (I had a 3.3 GPA at the time as an undergraduate) so I was desperate to do what I could to maximize my GRE score. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of paying for one of those in-person classes, which was a complete waste of time.

Most of the testing strategies for the quantitative test that they suggested were common sense and required only a small bit of logic. Further, some were designed primarily for people who couldn’t figure out the math in the first place. In all honesty, an engineer won’t likely benefit from most of the testing strategies on the quantitative side of things.

On verbal I still honestly feel like the only real trick is just memorizing vocabulary words, and that really isn’t all that important for engineers anyway, so it isn’t worth the money.

The writing section might have been the only quasi-useful coaching included, and you could just get that off the internet anyway. It really just boiled down to understanding the rough rubric they use to judge the writing responses.

I am reasonably confident that the preparation I did contributed nothing to my Q score, maybe 50 points to my V score (on the old 800 point scale where 50 was a modest improvement) and maybe 0.5 on my AW score.

Also, most of the engineers I know who took the GRE basically did a week or two of looking at practice tests and that’s about it.

I just thought I would provide a quick update. He decided to study and retake the GRE which he did today. He scored a 165 on the math and a 161 on the verbal up from 164 and 147. He is thrilled. He still want to apply to a master’s program in environmental engineering probably focused on water resources. Thank you all for your thoughts!

Don’t know whether to continue this thread or start a new one but I’ll start here. Just recently my son has begun talking about applying to a PhD program instead of a MS. He does have some concern about the commitment but thinks that he wants to be doing research. Are Phd programs generally MS to Phd meaning that when part of the way through if the Phd isn’t complete there is still a possibility of earning a masters? Or are programs just Phd programs and if not completed no degree is earned? He was considering writing to programs he is interested in to ask about this but I thought it wouldn’t look good for him for admission and funding. I suggested he call without giving his name to ask. Any thoughts or information is appreciated.

Generally, but not always, you earn a Masters degree along the way to getting a PhD. It generally takes longer than just getting a Masters, and they almost always have some form of disincentives towards leaving with an MS, but it’s rarely “all or nothing” because it’s well acknowledged that the dropout rate is significant. General consensus is that schools are really unhappy about people leaving with just a Masters, and more so about trying to get one without paying the cost by going through the PhD route, but at the end of the day you have to do what is best for you.

MS first is a good option if you aren’t sure if research is right for you. Usually you will lose a bit of time overall by doing that but it’s often worth it.

The information he is looking for is generally available on the grad program’s website. It is not consistent between programs, so you really need to look at each one.

I planned to close this thread with the final result but a new question came up and you have all been so helpful. I could post this on the gradschool forum but I thought I would try here first. My son did decide to apply to PhD programs except where application to grad first was required. His plan will be to do masters and PhD at the same school and almost for sure will not be going to his undergrad school. So far he has been invited to 3 interviews all in different parts of the country. Two of the 3 are covering the expenses of travel and lodging. One has offered a contribution to the travel that I think will cover less than half the expense of the trip. Of the two covering expenses one has set him up on a redeye flight that literally has him traveling all night and arriving early morning. My question is, can he request more funds for travel from the school not covering the full cost or to try and change his flight schedule where flying all night or would this be presumptuous? He loves all of these programs and is interested in all of them and really likes and respects the profs he has been communicating with.

I don’t know who will look at this thread but wanted to close it with a summary of how things turned out hoping it may be helpful to future students working through the process of deciding about applications to grad school and Ph.D programs. Let me start by thanking those of you who replied, in many ways your suggestions impacted the final outcome.
First on the question of applying for a Ph.D or masters: The replies received here first opened our eyes to the possibility of applying a Ph.D directly after undergrad rather than going from masters to Ph.D if the Ph.D is the end goal. It took a while to work through making this decision but my son ultimately decided to go for a Ph.D. There were a few schools that required application to a masters first and in those cases he applied for a masters. After getting accepted to 6/7 programs he quickly rejected one of the masters first programs and spoke to the professor at the other. The prof arranged for him to be accepted directly into Ph.D program at that school. The prof at the school he rejected got back to him and it seemed that if he asked this may have been an option. The bottom line is that if you are a strong student this point may be negotiable.

On selecting programs to apply to: Again guided by information received here my son reviewed the research being done in his field of interest at several universities and reached out to those that interested him via email. He visited with by phone or by Skype with those that got back to him and had several conversations with a few. He didn’t apply to any that didn’t get back to him. Interestingly he described phone discussions as a gift. He would reserve a quiet room in his school library, organize the information in front of him which allowed him to be better prepared for his discussions. Incidentally there was one very well respected professor who seemed to like him but for whom he felt out classed. Amazingly when the prof didn’t see his application he contacted my son. My son had missed the ap deadline but was still given the opportunity to apply and was accepted with funds to this program. Bottom line, identify your interests, reach out to the professors, prepare for your discussions and don’t count yourself out if the professor takes the time to meet with you!

On taking the GRE: In my original post I mentioned that my son wasn’t good at standardized tests. He was very upset about his first GRE score. If I remember correctly he prepared a couple of weeks on his own and scored 161 Math and 147 Verbal (or whatever that section is called). He felt he could have scored 170 on the math but was ok with the 161, as for the 147 his words were that non native English speakers did better than him. No telling how he would have done with admissions if he didn’t retake the test but he got a MaGoosh online prep course. I don’t know the details about his approach but I know he faithfully worked on it nightly in evenings while doing his summer internship for June and July and tested at the end of July. He also started reading for pleasure, something he previously wasn’t doing. His scores improved to 165 Math and 161 Verbal. More importantly his vocabulary improved for life! Until observing this I thought this study was only about the test but it improved his language abilities for life!

On choosing a program: All programs offered full funding and stipends or research assistant/teaching assistant opportunities. Making the choice was difficult and only time will tell if he made the best choice but he is happy with it. All of his schools were top 20 ranked, some of the professors very well known and established others non tenured. In the end he went with his passion both for research and location. He had offers that were initially better than the one he took but he was able to show proof of this and had his offer matched. A few weeks in now he is loving it!

Thank you again for all of you who were so helpful. There were many of you but I need to shout out in particular to @boneh3ad for help in this thread and few others. I hope this commentary pays it forward to those of you working on making these important decisons!

I’d add a note from my kid’s experience – it can be very inconvenient, but visit the programs that offer paid visits. My kid was crisscrossing the US for several weeks on visits, but they were very enlightening. She ended up at a program that was out of the way geographically, and it was a hassle to visit, but they really shone when she was on campus.

@intparent . Definitely! I forgot to mention that, and there were about 5 or 6 weeks of trips around the country, but very worthwhile! It would have been hard to make a decision without these!

I should also add that where he didn’t get full funding for travel to see a school, he requested funds to cover the trip and got them. (Note that where the funding didn’t cover the trip it wasn’t offered as partial but as funding up to a dollar amount and that amount would never cover the trip between the locations he was traveling).