<p>Looking to apply for a top 5 biomedical engineering program for a masters and my Junior year starts next week! I am looking to start preparing right now, but when should I actually take the test? Next summer?</p>
<p>Also, any highly recommended GRE prep books? I did a little searching and saw that the ETS practice exams are really good, but looking for other good resources besides that.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Take it whenever you feel ready. Next summer would probably be the latest I’d take it. Then you’d still have some time for a retake if the unexpected happens. </p>
<p>A lot of people recommended the Nova math prep book so that’s what I used. I also used the Princeton Review Cracking the GRE book, but mostly just to see what they were looking for on the writing section. The math in that book was all covered better in Nova Prep. I didn’t study for the verbal part so I’m not sure what books are good for that section.</p>
<p>I’m a BME senior. 
I just took mine last weekend, but I’d recommend that you take it by early summer at the latest in case you need a retake. They will be rolling out the revised GRE general test in August 2011, so it’s probably best to plan on being done before then. Also, you don’t want to draw out your preparation too long, or you’ll start forgetting things that you reviewed early on.</p>
<p>I recommend Barron’s for math, they do a pretty comprehensive review of all of the concepts you would need to know, as well as a few tricks/strategies. Kaplan and Princeton Review were heavier on the tricks and didn’t teach the concepts as thoroughly, IMO.</p>
<p>As far as verbal goes, expanding your vocab goes a long way. Barron’s contains a list of 3500 vocab words, but I really only studied their list of 300ish high frequency words and Princeton Review’s Hit Parade/Beyond the Hit Parade lists (quite a bit of overlap between the two).</p>
<p>I definitely swear by the ETS’ PowerPrep CATs.</p>