How good/bad my chance is and shouldn't I rescore AW of GRE or retake the whole GRE?

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello friends,
I am planning to apply for a Ph.D. program in several US universities and have two related questions:</p>

<p>1) How good my chance is? In other words, what universities would you recommend me to apply for? Does it make sense to try to apply for a MIT Ph.D. program (BTW, they don't require GRE)? Please see my info below.</p>

<p>2) Should I request re-scoring of AW or retake the whole GRE test?<br>
As you may see from the information below I've got quite a low result for AW (3.0) and VR (440) sections of GRE. Honestly speaking, I knew I had failed the verbal part (mostly because of unexpectedly too abstruse RC tasks), so I think 440 was a fair result for me, but I was sure that I'll get 5 or at least 4 for AW.</p>

<p>Well, my English is definitely not perfect, but AFAIK, AW also measures the ability to analyze topics and follow the structure. The GRE web-site says that 3.0 for AW means that "the writing is flawed in at least one of the following ways: limited analysis or development; weak organization; weak control of sentence structure or language usage, with errors that often result in vagueness or lack of clarity"</p>

<p>I believe my analysis was quite deep, I did follow the recommended essay structure (intro, 3-5 thoughts + examples, conclusion), the sentence structure was correct or almost always correct. Though I might (and probably did) make several (maybe even many) wording errors, they could not have affected the clarity so much. I am sure in this because I had enough time to review my essays and fix the errors I found. In fact, these two were one of the best GRE essays of mine. (I think I should mention that after reviewing the argument task I decided to add an insignificant sentence to the end of my conclusion, and did not finish it).</p>

<p>I see several possible ways to interpret my AW score:
1) There was a mistake because of which one my essays was not submitted or was confused with someone else's essay. I understand that it is almost impossible. Is it?
2) GRE reviewers are very very exigent in language usage and wording, so exigent that 3.0 for a ESL test taker is a good result. Is it?
3) I've read several (about 20-30) sample essays in the "Answers To Real Essay Questions (2003)" book and my test essay topic was one of these 20-30. Though I didn't even try to memorize the essays I might (and probably did) recollect the main ideas developed in the essay from the book, and the essay reviewer gave me a low score for that. How do they score AW if an essay mentions the ideas presented in a sample essay?</p>

<p>So, now I don't know what to do. ETS doesn't even provide any explanations to the score. Will it be reasonable to request re-scoring? Do you know if it is an effective way or they usually don't change the score? Maybe, having such a low score for AW and VR I should retake the whole test? </p>

<p>Any comments are much appreciated. </p>

<p>=================</p>

<h1>My background and test results:</h1>

<p>I've got my master's degree in Engineering (with concentration on Automatization and Control) at a Russian university which is one in the top 10 or 20 (according to different ratings) Russian universities.</p>

<p>Bachelor's GPA: 3.95
Master's GPA: 4.0
Additional to higher education (translator of English language) GPA: 4.0
TOEFL iBT: 107
- Reading: 29
- Listening: 29
- Speaking: 22
- Writing: 27
GRE:
- Analytical Writing: 3.0 (!!)
- Quantitative Reasoning: 800
- Verbal Reasoning: 440</p>

<p>No publications, no participation in decent scientific conferences, though took part in several university and department technical projects.</p>

<p>Won a couple of university's awards (one is for scholastic achievements, another is for leadership).</p>

<p>Quite a lot of social activity (have organized and am leading a local free English speaking club, organize amateur volleyball games).</p>

<p>Currently I work in a local branch of Rocket Software as a documentation engineer.</p>

<h1>My sphere of interest (based on which I'll choose the programs to apply for) is Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.</h1>

<p>I am very sorry for such a long post.</p>

2

<p>I would take the test again. Although I suppose it is technically possible that they accidentally scored your test incorrectly, it is highly unlikely. The Verbal Score is probably about average for a quantitatively oriented person and aligns with the AW score. I’d say your best bet is to do it over. Your GPA in both programs is obviously stellar but the profs at MIT may not know the Russian Universities as well and that may add additional weight to the GRE scores (800 is great, but most MIT Engineers probably come in with that or close to it). If you think you just had a poor performance and could do better on the V and AW then I’d take it over. Good Luck.</p>

3

<p>Thank you very much for you reply!
Yes, probably that’s what I will have to do. Just need some time to pull myself together again.
I am afraid anyway there will be another problem with MIT: they will require some strong publications or conference participations.
Thank you again.</p>

4

<p>Hi everybody,</p>

<p>I joined this forum today. I am an engineering graduate from Nepal. I completed my undergraduate in Electronics and Communication Engineering. Can you please help me out in deciding which colleges to apply in US.</p>

<p>My GRE scores: 560 V, 790 Q, 3 AW
My undergraduate score: 82.17/100 (i.e. 82.17%). We don’t get score in terms of GPA.</p>

<p>I am planning to apply to Cornell, Texas A&M University, Virginia Tech, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.</p>

<p>My interest for master’s study is “wireless communications”. I have no publications or strong research background. However, I have been involved in many extra-curricular activities during my undergraduate studies and currently teaching in my department.</p>

<p>Can you please help me in deciding if its worth applying to top 50 universities in USA? And also suggestions of universities where my chances of getting admission with good scholarship would be high.</p>

<p>Any help will me highly appreciated.
Thanks</p>