Taking the GRE again...advice, anyone?

[alienarms]

So...I'm applying to clinical Ph.D. programs for 2007, hoping to focus on neuropsychology of anxiety and chronic pain. I've been intending to re-take the GRE General test, as my initial quant score was low (due to taking it my senior year during thesis research, fall classes, and honors work, in addition to 2 jobs)-a 560. My verbal was in the 94th percentile, so I'm not worried about that. My GRE Psych was 96th percentile and my undergrad GPA from a large, research-based institution was 3.99, 4.0 psychology. I'm currently entering my 2nd year as a clinical RA in neuroimaging research at a major psychiatric hospital. I will be published by the end of the summer and will be presenting a poster at SfN in the fall.

I've been doing a lot of research on possible programs and have narrowed it down to about 10 that are a good match.

Given that my apps coming out of my senior year were rejected (in retrospect I did everything wrong in the app process-5 schools, not good matches, all high-ranking), should I retake the GRE in the hopes of bringing my quant score above 600? Or is it a waste of time and money?

BTW, I know the GRE topic is discussed to death here (despite my low number of posts, I'm on this board a lot), so I'm sorry for the redundancy but this is worrying me.

 

[Psyclops]

What does a 94 in verbal translate to in raw score? If you ask me I wouldn't do it, because there is a good chance that V score will drop. Or maybe not a good chance, but it's possible. What is your overall?

 

[alienarms]

I think it was a 1220? I know-not great. I took it in fall '04, so you're right, the verbal could drop.

 

[Psyclops]

Well then you might want to do it. But, you could consider asking your letter writers to address this issue in their letters. Basically have them say that they think it isn't representative of your abilities, asuming they are comfortable with that. They probably would be.

 

[alienarms]

I just don't know if I'M comfortable with asking my LOR writers to cover for me.
It may be easier to retake the exam, LOL.

I think, after reading all of this again, that it comes down to the fact that I don't feel good about the score and given that, I should probably try to improve it. I don't think the V will come down and I really believe that I can improve my Q score. I honestly didn't study at all last time and now I have time to work on it.

I guess I answered my own question in the end...but thank you so much for the help; I really appreciate it!

 

[irish80122]

I just don't know if I'M comfortable with asking my LOR writers to cover for me.
It may be easier to retake the exam, LOL.

I think, after reading all of this again, that it comes down to the fact that I don't feel good about the score and given that, I should probably try to improve it. I don't think the V will come down and I really believe that I can improve my Q score. I honestly didn't study at all last time and now I have time to work on it.

I guess I answered my own question in the end...but thank you so much for the help; I really appreciate it!

I actually had the opposite problem, my verbal was low. However, I do have some advice that may help you on the Quant (I got a 790, in case you were curious about the source). What I did was I got the book of old GRE's and I just really worked on all of those problems to make sure that I knew how to do all of them. Once I knew that, I looked at how the questions are graded. The early questions (first 10) are much more important than the later ones. In fact, I did a test with a practice comptuer GRE (one of the ones ETS gives you) and if you get the first 10 right and then guess randomly, you actually can get a 700 on the Math. Therefore, review and make sure that you can do all the problems and on the test just really focus on the first 10-15 questions and be sure you get those right. Then, do your best to finish but you may have to rush, but don't worry so much about the time, just focus on the first few problems. I think that should help, good luck!

 

[alienarms]

I know that with the adaptive test, the first few problems are important, but I hadn't thought about it in those terms. Thank you!