<p>Hi I have just completed the freshmen year of my college. I have read somewhere that this is probably the best time to take the GRE as your vocab is the strongest at this age.</p>
<p>Also with the new GRE Coming up should i take the old GRE or wait for the new one. Will giving the GRE 3 yrs in advance affect my chances for admission????
Plz help</p>
<p>I wouldn't take it until you are absolutely sure you want to go straight to grad school. It is an expensive exam to take, so you only want to take it once. The scores are only good for five years, so if you decide to take any time off or if something happens out of your control (such as transferring schools or heaven forbid, an illness or something requires you to take more time in undergrad than you anticipate). </p>
<p>As for taking it before it changes...I don't know how a university would view it but I really don't think many graduate admissions committee's will even consciously see the date you took them, just they will likely just see the scores. Heck, when I went to visit my PhD school in March my advisor only knew where I was attending now (for my MS) and didn't even know where I completed my undergrad. It probably varies widely, but I think they have bigger things on their minds than when you took the GRE.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the current version of the exam is computer adaptive, whereas the new version will again be standardized.</p>
<p>This is to say that the new exam will be curved, just like the SAT's: For every score, there will be a specific amount of people who have that score based on standard deviation. The current version is such that one is only competing against himself, and it is possible that nobody ever get a certain score. </p>
<p>I will be a junior at New College of Florida this fall. I am also debating whether to catch the exam in its current state, or whether to wait until they change the exam. I tend to be good at analogies and antonyms, but having a calculator for the quantitative section is attractive...</p>
<p>Would taking the GRE after graduation not be a good idea? I would like to take the GRE this semester, but it seems impossible to prepare with my busy class schedule.</p>
<p>For the reasons that ophiolite mentioned, I would not advise taking the GRE any earlier than the summer before the junior year, and then only if you are certain of your plans - for most people the best route is to study during that year and then take the exam over the summer. You certainly want to allow enough time for additional study and a retake if needed, so don’t wait until the last minute either.</p>
<p>As for after graduation… if you know you are planning on going to grad school within a few years, but not immediately after graduation, then I would say the summer or fall following graduation is ideal - that lets you concentrate on your final semester of studies, but still get the GRE out of the way while you still remember everything. Waiting a few years can be tough…</p>
<p>joshnewcollege: I wouldn’t wait for the new GRE. The old GRE is very well-characterized and it’s easy to study for. Don’t forget that everyone else is going to benefit from having a calculator and being able to go back and change answers. So your percentile score is probably not going to be much different. Also, it’s likely that the complexity of the problems will increase when doing multiplication and division becomes completely trivial.</p>
<p>And regarding when to the take GRE in general: it’s my opinion that you should take it whenever you know for certain that you’ll have enough time to study for it and have time after that in case your first testing doesn’t go so well. I think you’ll also want to wait until after sophomore year so that your writing skills and vocabulary have increased a bit.</p>
<p>What is the last date that you can take the old (computer adaptive) GRE?</p>
<p>Any way, what’s the difference between the old and new GRE?</p>
<p>I was pretty happy with my decision to take GREs right at the end of the summer, after studying pretty seriously during the break.</p>
<p>Cheers!</p>