Intro and an inquiring (Canadian) mind...

[alter_klang]

Taking a page out of other posters' books, I'll start with a wee snippet of introduction and then move on to questions. (Well, a few questions -- not all my questions, goodness. This graduate school business is daunting!)

I'm going into my fourth year of an undergrad combined honours program (essentially, a double major, but with honours standing,

Comments

[greekdaph]

Glad I could help!

The GRE is always a tough balancing act: it's an applying-to-grad-school cliche that a good score won't get you in, but it can keep you out--that is, some programs at some schools have cut-offs that mean that applications with GRE scores or GPAs below a certain threshold don't get read as carefully. (Note: different disciplines, of course, are interested in different subsets of your score: English programs, for instance, want a high verbal score but usually don't care about the math. At some schools, though, the graduate school vets applications before they reach the department, and graduate schools will sometimes use the composite score as their criteria. Also, some schools consider composite GRE scores when choosing recipients of university fellowships.) Where the balancing act comes in is in thinking about how much time to devote to the GRE during your application process. It is, ultimately, one of the LEAST important parts of your application, but because it's the one thing you can study for--the one thing where the path to improvement has easily discernible steps--it's easy to devote a disproportionate amount of time preparing for it. That's why many of us who've been through the process recommend getting it out of the way early. You'll want to focus on the elements of your application that allow your personality to show through.

And yes, it would be so much easier if programs didn't ask for so many different kinds of material!!