I took the GRE today...

[dullsilver_mike]

And did pretty darn well on the verbal section which is the one relevant to my academic field! I haven't accomplished anything that built my self confidence for a while now, and it feels nice to realize that my verbal skills are top notch.

I'm alone in a strange land at the moment and have no one to share with, so I guess I felt the need to share good news (or brag, depending on how you look at it) here. New Belgium's Trippel is my celebratory beer this evening.

What's your most recent accomplishment that made you feel just plain good about yourself TB?

[champbassist]

Originally Posted by dullsilver_mike

And did pretty darn well on the verbal section which is the one relevant to my academic field! I haven't accomplished anything that built my self confidence for a while now, and it feels nice to realize that my verbal skills are top notch.

I'm alone in a strange land at the moment and have no one to share with, so I guess I felt the need to share good news (or brag, depending on how you look at it) here. New Belgium's Trippel is my celebratory beer this evening.

Congrats! Do keep us updated. I'm looking to take the GRE in the near future Tips, probably?

[LiquidMidnight]

I did below average on the quant section (albeit, not bad considering I never had an algebra class in my life and actually taught myself algebra), average on the verbal section (and I usually excel on verbal stuff), and crushed the analytical section.

They still let me get a Ph.D. Of course, I had had a 3.97 out of 4.0 and a 4.0 out of a 4.0 in my undergraduate and master's programs, respectively. I was once told that if you dumped GRE scores into a regression model with no other independent variables and had success in graduate school as the dependent variable, you'd get an R-square value of about .1. In other words, it's not a good predictor of how well you will do in graduate school. In assessment and psychometric terms, it would be said to have poor criterion validity. I don't know how accurate is that claim, but I do know that it lacks a lot of face validity. I've always said that the LSAT at least has face validity. It measures your ability to reason abstractly about verbal information, which is pretty important for attorneys. Is knowing some backdoor way to find the shaded area of five squares superimposed upon one another relevant to most graduate programs? Ehh, I'd venture not. A lot of graduate programs, particuarly master's programs, are dropping GRE requirements for admissions packages.

I'm not trying to crap on your good news, though. Congrats on doing well!

[dieselbass]

congrats on that accomplishment! No college for me, but going to a church full of UCD people, I track the difficulty. Used to jam with an associate prof in sub atomic field. Great guitar player and answered a lot of questions.

best of luck as you proceed!

Mike

[dullsilver_mike]

Originally Posted by LiquidMidnight

I did below average on the quant section (albeit, not bad considering I never had an algebra class in my life and actually taught myself algebra), average on the verbal section (and I usually excel on verbal stuff), and crushed the analytical section.

They still let me get a Ph.D. Of course, I had had a 3.97 out of 4.0 and a 4.0 out of a 4.0 in my undergraduate and master's programs, respectively. I was once told that if you dumped GRE scores into a regression model with no other independent variables and had success in graduate school as the dependent variable, you'd get an R-square value of about .1. In other words, it's not a good predictor of how well you will do in graduate school. In assessment and psychometric terms, it would be said to have poor criterion validity. I don't know how accurate is that claim, but I do know that it lacks a lot of face validity. I've always said that the LSAT at least has face validity. It measures your ability to reason abstractly about verbal information, which is pretty important for attorneys. Is knowing some backdoor way to find the shaded area of five squares superimposed upon one another relevant to most graduate programs? Ehh, I'd venture not. A lot of graduate programs, particuarly master's programs, are dropping GRE requirements for admissions packages.

I'm not trying to crap on your good news, though. Congrats on doing well!

That doesn't make me feel too great I scored a 5.5 on the analytic back in 2006, and, even combined with my 3.9 undergrad GPA (as well as being president of the University honors society in my field and a pile of other achievements), it didn't encourage any master's programs to give me so much as an interview.

Because of the lackluster response at that time I assumed most departments took the lazy route and just looked at the other test scores(analytic was relatively new at the time). So I was actually kind of banking on my very high verbal score now to pull a good portion of the weight in applications to PhD programs. It's useful to know ahead of time that many people wouldn't even consider it though; I have noticed that a lot of programs no longer require GRE scores as part of their application process.

Originally Posted by champbassist

Congrats! Do keep us updated. I'm looking to take the GRE in the near future Tips, probably?

Anyone who works with math on a day to day basis will have an advantage on the quantitative (and the material only goes so far as basic algebra ). Anyone who reads a lot of scholarly articles or high brow literary stuff will have an advantage on the verbal. Those two tendencies aside, it seems like it's more of a test designed to demonstrate who can do a good job of preparing for a major test. I say the best approach is to get a study guide and dedicate a few hours every day for several months to preparing for it.

[jrthebassguy]

Congrats! I'm about to start a GMAT prep course next month for when I go back for my MBA in the next few years.