<p>I'm currently in my senior year of BS in Mechanical Engineering. My GPA is currently 3.92, I have completed 4 semesters of co-op/internship and 1 semesters of undergraduate research experience (will have another semester by the time I graduate), and expecting good references. The catch is, I took my GRE today and blew them. (470 verbal, 700 quantitative). No time to retake it (for most schools I'm applying to). English is not my native language, but I'm considered a domestic student, so no TOEFL (in fact, they won't know my origin unless I mention it in the personal statement, and I'm not sure if I should).
My question is, is it even worth to try applying to grad schoosl at all, and top grad schools in particular with GRE scores like this? Do I have any chance of getting admitted and getting financial assistance?</p>
<p>How reputable is your undergraduate institution? If it’s good, your GRE may be ignored (somewhat). If not, they’ll assume your program was easy.</p>
<p>Your other options:</p>
<p>1) Your undergraduate institution may be more sympathetic towards you. Try to get in there for MS.</p>
<p>2) Have a letter writer dismiss your GRE as not indicative of your potential. You could do this yourself in your SOP but it looks silly since this your fault and isn’t an extenuating circumstance.</p>
<p>Also, with just a semester of research experience, you aren’t competitive for PhD admissions so financial aid is unlikely at top programs and would’ve been so even with good GRE scores. Try for a terminal MS at a lower-ranked school and rack up research experience. Then apply later for top schools.</p>
<p>My undergrad school is in the top 50 graduate engineering schools (USN&W rankings). I applied there also but I am still trying to apply into the top schools, as well.
My bad, I should have mentioned that I am not going straight for PhD. I want to get MS first and see from there.
Oh, and next week I am retaking my GRE. They won’t arrive in time for some of the schools I’m applying to but for a few schools they should arrive. I’m pretty confident I’ll do better this time… Last time was bad time management on my part mostly, and I practiced it since then,</p>