Applying to graduate school-Academic debris

Step 2 in our multi-part pathway, taking your graduate school exams...

Step 2. The GRE (Great Ridiculous Excess, aka Graduate Record Exam).  Taking this test once will run you about $250 (at least it did back when I took it) and the scores are good for about 2 years.  So take this seriously, you don't want to go through it twice, for multiple reasons.  Technically, the are two forms of this test.  If you're lucky, you only have to take the general test.  Some schools will also make you take the subject test (generalized-biology, mathematics, physics, etc).  Keep that in mind in thinking about the cross between what schools you want to go to and what tests you need to take.  I'm quite convinced the GRE is designed to prove that you know nothing about a bunch of menial material (similar to comps, which prove you know nothing about really important things related to your field-more on this on a later post).  My advice, just get the little Kaplan book with practice tests (http://www.amazon.com/New-2011-2012-Premier-CD-ROM-Kaplan/dp/1607148498) and 7th grade breakdown of all the major material.  Take a practice test.  Relearn 7th grade math and word association.  Panic about the number of vocab words on the list that you don't (and never will know).  The best thing I did was hang out on middle school and high school websites.  It's not that you don't know it, it's just that for most people finding the area of a shaded section in an obtuse shape just doesn't come up in our daily lives.  (Those who know me often hear me vent about a similar issue in my Calculus I course, in which we spent 3 weeks finding the volume of a deflated inner tube...).  When you go to take the test in the little computer room, the worker will be fussy and basically want to strip search you.  And no matter what, you're still going to feel like you don't know enough.  And you can't, trust me.  One of the questions on mine was "What term refers to an Amish flower printed blanket?".  Not only did I not even have a clue what the answer was, but I was left thinking, where in life am I going that this is a deal breaking piece of knowledge??


                               

Anyway, your scores come back in the hundreds and most schools, if they even post a minimum only care about the total.  Many professors will admit they don't even take it into account.  Since the test is so pricey, the only way to make the system work for you is to have you list of potential schools ahead of time.  They'll let you send to so many for free during registration, but they charge you a hefty price after just to spite your indecision.

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value" Arthur C. Clarke