GRE advice
Hi all,
So I'm planning on applying for a MA in history for the Fall of 2010. My end goal is to be a secondary school social studies teacher, so I really don't care about the name of the school or anything like that, just as long as there are professors there that teach my interests (primarily US history w/strengths in race and gender history). The biggest thing I need is either to qualify for a tuition waver or a graduate assistanships, which I know can be rare at the MA level.
So, long story short, I'm trying to decide if I need to take the GRE again. I got a 520 verbal and 630 math, and I haven't gotten my writing scores back yet. I studied a good bit for these thru Kaplan books and other online sources (in no way can afford to take a course), and most of my practice tests actually put me in the 450 range (with one outlier of a test at 600 the weekend before the test.), so while this score definitely wasn't what I wanted, it also wasn't horribly lower than where I'd been practicing at. I really really really don't want to take them again, one b/c it caused me almost debilitating anxiety for the two weeks before the test, and I really don't want to dish out another $150 when I don't know if my score will even improve and/or if it even matters. I have a 3.9 gpa, will be able to write a solid SOP, and will get great recommendations. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to get into the schools I'm applying to, I'm just worried if my verbal GRE score will hurt my chances of getting scholarships or assistantships. (Also, for frame of reference, I think the main schools I'll be applying to now are University of New Orleans, Northern Arizona University, Villanova University, and University of Oregon. Oh, and possibly UT-Dallas, but mainly b/c they don't require GREs.)
Any thoughts?
So I'm planning on applying for a MA in history for the Fall of 2010. My end goal is to be a secondary school social studies teacher, so I really don't care about the name of the school or anything like that, just as long as there are professors there that teach my interests (primarily US history w/strengths in race and gender history). The biggest thing I need is either to qualify for a tuition waver or a graduate assistanships, which I know can be rare at the MA level.
So, long story short, I'm trying to decide if I need to take the GRE again. I got a 520 verbal and 630 math, and I haven't gotten my writing scores back yet. I studied a good bit for these thru Kaplan books and other online sources (in no way can afford to take a course), and most of my practice tests actually put me in the 450 range (with one outlier of a test at 600 the weekend before the test.), so while this score definitely wasn't what I wanted, it also wasn't horribly lower than where I'd been practicing at. I really really really don't want to take them again, one b/c it caused me almost debilitating anxiety for the two weeks before the test, and I really don't want to dish out another $150 when I don't know if my score will even improve and/or if it even matters. I have a 3.9 gpa, will be able to write a solid SOP, and will get great recommendations. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to get into the schools I'm applying to, I'm just worried if my verbal GRE score will hurt my chances of getting scholarships or assistantships. (Also, for frame of reference, I think the main schools I'll be applying to now are University of New Orleans, Northern Arizona University, Villanova University, and University of Oregon. Oh, and possibly UT-Dallas, but mainly b/c they don't require GREs.)
Any thoughts?