Applying to universities in US

GRE Tips

2007-12-22T08:19:00.000-08:00

As I have taken the GRE, I am in a good position to give you some tips. For most of the international students the verbal portion is tough. Going through those wordlist is a torture that everybody would like to avoid. Though some of us manage to go through those word lists, there are very few who can remember more than 80% of those words. So I recommend following techniques:-

Start preparing 3 or 4 months before the exam. Rather than having a full month preparation before the exam, it's better to allocate few hours a day for 3 or 4 months.

The most effective way to prepare is to learn all the words from a dictionary but that's not possible. Most of us use Barron's book for word lists so it’s better to go through those words and learn them. It’s natural that you won’t able to memorize those words just reading once. So try to revise the words and see how much you can remember. Mark the words that you forget and try revising them again. This iterative approach would really help you remember. In addition to that or if you cannot do that, I suggest following: Collect the frequent lists from different books like Kaplan, Barron, Arco, Princeton Review and try to memorize those words. These words are the words that generally appear in the exam.

Make the habit of reading different articles from New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Washington post etc. While reading those collect the words that are new to you. Also, focus on the punctuation and sentence structure that's being used as this can be helpful for your Analytical Writing Assessment preparation.
Also try to use the vocabulary that you have learnt. Using it will not only help you memorize but also enhance your ability to select appropriate words for the context at hand? This skill will certainly benefit you beyond the GRE for rest of your life.

Don't be too ambitious. I know some of us out there are too ambitious and try to memorize all those words out there. Though it might be possible for some, others generally seem to spoil their score because they miss out the shades of meanings of the words. They do know more words but they don't know it well as they should know it. Keep in mind you shouldn't miss out on questions that asks the words that you already know. The moral is: prepare for the core portion of the tests, not for those 3 or 4 questions that are likely to ask awkward words. You can always guess in those awkward cases.

For Quantitative sections I would recommend to follow Barron's and Nova's book. These two books cover the questions that generally appear on the GRE test. Sometimes GRE springs surprise by asking advanced questions that requires knowledge of higher mathematics. But remember, you are not preparing for those questions. There are 1 or 2 of them and their difficulty level is high. So if you get those questions wrong your score is very unlikely to be affected. Keep in mind the fact- even if you get 2 or 3 questions wrong you can still score 800.

These are based on my experiences you aren't obliged to follow it. If you have some other ideas that work for you, then it's fine. But I would love to hear your ideas. Please do post your ideas.

Various University Rankings

2007-12-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

Here are the rankings of the universities. The rank of each university seems to vary depending on the ranking.

Graduate School Rankings
America's Best Colleges
Academic Rankings of World Universities
Vanguard College Rankings
The Center for measuring university performance
Professional Ranking of World Universities

Find out your performance in GRE test

2007-12-20T00:31:00.000-08:00

Anybody who appears for a GRE test is willing to know the questions that he/she answered correctly and the questions that he/she got wrong. It is possible to view your performance on the actual GRE test. ETS offers this service but you need to have your official score report before you can have a look at it. If you have received your official GRE score report you can view it through the link below:

GRE Diagnostics Service

It contains performance analysis based on different sections and abilities that different questions measure. It doesn't contain analysis of Analytical Writing Assessment(AWA) Section.This service is only available for 6 months after the test.

Test Preparation Links-GRE,GMAT,TOEFL

2007-12-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

Whats the key to success in GRE, GMAT, TOEFL?. Its the practice. The more you practice the more you can master the test and score higher. So I have collected a lsit of good practice sites that may be useful to you. I personally used these practice exercises while taking test. I got a pretty good score of 1400. So I would like to share it here.
Rather than devoting most of your time cramming vocabulary I suggest you to practice these tests.

http://number2.com/

http://mygretutor.com/

http://www.eduers.com/

http://www.majortests.com/gre/

http://amby.com/GRE/

http://www.greguide.com/gre-practice-tests.html

http://www.testprepreview.com/gre_practice.htm

http://library.west.asu.edu/refguides/grad-school/gre-samples.html

http://freegre.net/

http://www.grestudyforum.blogspot.com/

Please feel free to suggest more links as it would be helpful for those who are appearing for the tests.

Links to Sample Resume, Statement of Purpose (SOP), Recommendations etc

2007-12-19T00:46:00.000-08:00

Recommendation Samples

http://www.geebeeworld.com/Documents/reco_mainpage.htm

This site also contains SOP samples, Work experience samples etc. So check it out it would be a great help.

SOP samples
http://admissionsync.com/2007/07/26/successful-essays/

I highly recommend admission sync because it contains lot of samples of statement of purpose. But before you have a look at it write your own SOP and use this link to polish your SOP. If you refer to these sites before writing your own, you can never be original in your expression and objectives.

The following link is a great resource for any individual planning to apply at the universities in the US. It addresses every details you need to be concerned about while applying to universities in the US. Starting from the applications to the period you will be waiting for decisions, it explains what you need to do to make the most out of your application.

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~natalia/studyinus.htm

Here are some more links that are useful.

Here are some more links that can be useful while writing SOP.

http://www.statementofpurpose.com/whatis.html

http://www.infozee.com/application-issues/essays-sop.htm

http://members.tripod.com/~usapply/apppkt/sop.html

http://www.princetonreview.com

Links to useful sites

2007-12-17T19:50:00.000-08:00

A forum where different issues can be discussed

http://www.urch.com/forums/

Various admission related topics also contains Rankings

http://admissionsync.com/

Sites which offer test preparation and helps in finding colleges.

http://www.petersons.com/
http://princetonreview.com/