[adonis]

The prelims.

The GRE is an easy exam compared to other Indian exams like the CAT etc., but it too needs a certain finite time for preparation. I’ll fix that up at three months from what the guys have said and from personal experience. The GRE is one exam where understanding the exam is more important than the exam itself. By that I mean the system has to be understood thoroughly before you guys even start preparing. Specific details such as section content, duration, syllabi, marking scheme etc., if known prior to your start of preparation might influence your preparations a great deal. Details like “there’s a penalty on the final score of an unfinished section” might be very vital when you take the test. You can avoid poring over “Wren and Martin” or “F.T. Woods” because there’s no grammar section in the GRE. All that if u make it a point to know how the GRE works before you guys even register. Spend sufficient time browsing the ETS and related sites to have a first person’s understanding. You might get advice from ‘n’ no. of ppl, but there’s nothing like clearing your doubts yourself.

All those guys who are planning to take the GRE in the near future make sure you accommodate a host of other factors apart from the preparation time required in deciding the test date (I’m not talking about numerology here ;-)). Factors like application deadlines, the time ETS takes to send your scores, the time your university takes to furnish transcripts, the deadlines for financial assistance applications, the time required to shortlist universities and elementary details like how soon the courier guys can have ur apps. sent should be thought of before you take up the exam. That’s because most of the guys have a tendency to get their reco. letters and SOP ready only after they take their exams and if you postpone your test date close to the application deadlines you might do a shoddy job with your SOP and recos. which otherwise could have been done well given sufficient time.

Re - establish all those long lost contacts (i.e.) relatives and friends who stay in the US. It’s a known fact that guys there know much more about the place than we do. If they can’t help with funding or short listing, they could at least tell you the survival parameters of a particular place.

That’s all I can think of the preliminaries rite now. If there are any specific queries feel free to ask.

Cheers