gre for international student

[philebus2]

I'm thinking to apply to an anthropology program (PhD). Do you think around 1200 GRE (around 600 Verbal n 650 Quant) points is enough for an international student? I'm considering universities like Harvard, Yale, UPenn etc. Thanks for the help in advance.

Comments

[lostreality]

Why don't you call the departments and ask? I'm in the penn sociology department, and 5 years ago when I applied they wanted a 600 or over on all sections of the gre.

Are you applying to those schools because they are ivy league, or because they have good anthropology programs?

[philebus2]

2 reasons:
1. they have very good programs just what I'm looking for (folklore and material culture in Central America)
2. private universities give full funding for international students (it's much harder to get funding from public universities; it's especially hard to get full scholarships)

[lostreality]

ok but there are plenty of schools that are private and that are not ivy league.

I"m just saying if you only apply to ivy league schools, you might be setting yourself up for disappointment.

[philebus2]

Is it so hard to get into an Ivy league school? :)
Anyways the problem is always the same: I can only attend universities that give me full funding, but mostly big universities such as Ivy league or Stanford are so rich to give everybody scholarship, even to international students. It's not that I wouldn't go gladly to IU,UNC or UMichigan, but their resources are very limited, as I heard most of these don't give support for foreigners. Sadly the case is almost similar with smaller private universities, moreover they don't have so much money for research either. Of course I'm considering universities like Emory, Duke, NYU, Columbia or SMU. By the way do you know anything about those? How hard is it to get into such universities?

[signsoflife]

I'm wondering who you're turning to for information, here. Have you asked the schools you'd otherwise be interested in for information on the funding available for international students?

An Ivy League school is generally going to be several times harder to get into that an equivalently ranked and funded non-Ivy, just because. And don't underestimate the finances of large public universities.

[blueyedangel143]

Have you been told by each and every one of these schools that they do or do not provide full funding for international students? It seems odd that you are so confident about the funding issue but have no idea about general GRE ranges for these schools...I would seek advice from graduate admissions counselors and the anthro departments at each school to get the most accurate information. I am not in anthro so I do not know the standard for GREs in that specific area, but common sense is telling me that a 1250 may be a bit low for those schools...including your B List (Duke, Emory, etc.). Also, as an international student, you may be required to take the TESOL to gain admittance. I am unsure of how heavily they factor this into admissions for international students.

[philebus2]

I don't know the GRE ranges because most of the schools don't publicize it, unlike the funding informations, which can be found on almost every university's homepage, and yes, most of the public universities don't give full funding for foreign students or only a limited amount.
So for example if a public university will admit 5 students, only a fraction of these could get full funding. Of course there are many scholarship or fellowship opportunities, but for most of them you have to be American citizen, as it is a public university. On the other hand in the case of private universities you don't get accepted without funding, and of course the nationality doesn't matter. But who knows, perhaps I'm wrong. :)
Anyways, under graduate admissions counselor you mean an adviser at my present university? (as we don't have any here, it's not so common outside the US)

[mallyns]

They do publish it you just need to know where to look. For Harvard its around 1500-1800 on the GRE. So to answer your question 1200 is not good enough. Sorry.

[philebus2]

Where did you get that information? (Especially when the max GRE score is 1600 :))

[elya_elvira]

Thank you all for all those helpful comments! I am also going to apply for Cultural (linguisitcs) Anthro this fall. And I am also an International student (Russia) So I know exactly what you were talking about.
The nubers from Petersons are quite lovely but I must say that they are a bit far from real life. I contacted a couple of schools and they gave a totally different info. You should be careful with it...
And RE: funding...I have a similar problem. I can not afford grad school unless I get full funding. However I have never heard of Private schools being more generous to international students. Does anyone know what schools have almost 100% support for grad Anthro students?

[elya_elvira]

I checked several universities' homepage, and all of the big private ones like Harvad, Princeton, Stanford, NYU, UChicago, Emory etc... assert that they finance everybody (of course depending on the needs).

[mallyns]

That called loans not grants. If you really need funding you wont be getting into Harvard. There was a huge thing that just went on. Harvard only accepts about 1% of people who need funding.

[philebus2]

Not just loans, but you are right, its more like a mix of work, grants and loans, but if you don't have money you cannot be choosy. I seriously doubt that 1%. But if you know a better place where you can get full funding, please let me know.

in a different field, but...

[circumfession]

I'm curious where you got the information on funding. As far as I know:

-whereas undergraduate funding tend to depend on need (with some scholarships based on merit, athletics, race, etc)...graduate funding, especially from the program, tends to depend on merit. Out of the 8 program (a mix of public/private, all fairly well ranked) that offered me funding, not a single one based their offer on "needs."

-many strong graduate programs, not JUST private, or JUST the ivys fully fund every ph.d candidate, regardless of citizenship. My highest offers actually came from public programs...so I wouldn't automatically assume that they would not have means to support you.

Re: in a different field, but...

[philebus2]

I just think funding is really depends on your program, as I know for example in engineering it's much easier to find scholarships.
Of course you are right about graduate funding, most of them are merit based, what I wanted to say is that if you can prove that you have money, most likely you won't get funding, even if you are a very good candidate.

Re: in a different field, but...

[circumfession]

You might want to reconsider some of your assumptions

Re: in a different field, but...

[circumfession]

I stand corrected.