ramya

I had applied for MS CS at VT... After 3 months of sleeping over my application , the VT people finally woke up to give me a reject :( I checked the online status page just now ........it says "We cannot offer you admission. You will receive formal letter reg. this blah blah blah.... Best of luck to everyone waiting for VT ~Ramya

Hi gforce Thanks for the reply........ :) Ramya

Hi ppl, i am posting on tm after a long time...... my profile B.E CSE 75.7 % Marthwada Univ GRE 1570/1600 , 5.5 TOEFL 5.5 Work-ex : 1.5 yrs IT admits: M.Eng CS Cornell Rensselaer : MS IT ( was rejected by CS) rejects: UT-Austin SUNY-Buffalo UCSB awaited: VT I wud like to get in touch with someone from india who is planning to go to cornell.........anyone out there? Cheers, Ramya

This is to thank all of you who have congratulated me . Thanks for your good wishes and I wish you the same. Thanks, Thanks and Thanks again Ramya

Hello Everyone who mailed me abt how I prepared for the GRE, I am getting a lot of mails asking how I prepared for the GRE. Since all these people want to know the same thing and its difficult for me to answer each one personally, I have posted the whole long story of how I prepared for the Big Test : Disclaimer: Just because this method worked for me is no guarantee that it will work for you. Evolving your own way of preparation will be the best for you. All the advice in this post should be taken with a pinch of salt :-) I started my GRE preparation formally in June for my exam in October. Since my vocabulary is naturally good, I didn't spend any time cramming wordlists. So my preparation time for Verbal was wholly devoted to solving questions. I gave maximum attention to RC questions which I solved as many as I could get hold of. I don't believe that learning wordlists helps in improving vocabulary. The best way to improve your vocabulary permanently is to read as much as you can, as long as you can. But for those who want shortcuts, I would recommend using any wocabulary building software that is freely available on the net. But it is better to use these software in the test mode than in the learning mode. If you don't know a word, guess its meaning from the alternatives before looking at the answer. Here is how I prepared for AWA I wrote around 20 essays in all most of which are posted here on TM. I read the list of issues completely and I always chose the ones I found difficult to write my essays. I tried to do the same with the arg list but I never finished reading it. Also whenever I practiced, I did it under strict timing limits . Infact I alloted myself only 30 mins for the issue and 20 for the argument so that I would have time to revise. Quantitative - I really didn't prepare much for it as GRE maths is easy and I like Maths. Also I found 45 minutes sufficient to even solve each question twice. So I mainly concentrated on solving each question carefully rather than preparing for all types of questions. What you need for Q is a cool head and a good sense of timing. As to the books and resources I used: For AWA: I know of only one book for the writing assessment and it has sample essays for 125 issues and 125 arguments. The name of the book is "GRE-Answers to the Real Essay Questions" details given below: ISBN: 0-02-863545-0 Author: Mark Alan Stewart Publication date: June 2000 Length: 352 pages Cover price: US$14.95, CAN$21.95 Publisher: IDG Books (ARCO imprint) I don't know if it is available in India now. I got it from the US through relatives. I found the book quite OK , though not worth the exorbitant price I paid for it. The issues I didn't like but the arguments were good. The book is more of a psychological support. You will get more benefit by writing essays on your own and posting them on TM. The book is good for a general idea on how to write essays but you have to develop your own personal style. And you must be careful not to be too influenced by the book. After reading it, I found it very difficult to think of points other than those given in it. And I feel, originality will fetch you more points especially in the issue. I also went through the AWA guide on 800score.com The other books were Cracking the gre 2003- The Princeton Review The Unofficial Guide to the GRE- ARCO Barron's How to prepare for the GRE and other preparation materials including tests on CDs of TPR, arco, kaplan,peterson's. It is your state of mind on the day of the exam that counts more than all your preparation. Just be very careful to solve the early questions correctly. I checked the diagnostic service of ets. I got only one question wrong in Verbal( the 8th one and of difficulty level 4 which is the highest I think) and due to that I lost 30 marks. If I had done the same question wrong at the end I would have lost less marks. All the best to everyone. If you have any questions other than these, I'll be glad to help you. Ramya

Hi Amigo, 1530 CONGRATULATIONS to you ........ 800 in V is really cool. And I can understand your surprise...I got similar scores in my second PPrep test. Are you applying for a PhD ? All the best to you Ramya

Hi Seeny CONGRATS !! What are ur future plans ?

Hello everyone, Got my awa scores in the mail today. I scored 5.5 in the awa. Apparently 770 in Verbal also means 99 percentile. Hey Erin, Guess what! I copied and pasted my subject text from your sticky post !:p Funny coincidence that your example of how to put the title of the post matched with my scores ! I wish to thank everyone here at TM. You have all helped me a lot! A special THANK YOU to you, Erin! for founding this group.

CONGRATS !!! ............. your awa scores are putting me at a loss of words.

Hi Kaushik :):D:cool::o .......... Congratulations! Your score is mind boggling!

Hi Sri You sure hit a SIXER! CONGRATS and BEST OF LUCK TO YOU!

Hey Xaero C:cool:NGRATULATI:DNS !!! Great score there ! You can pick any univ of your choice now !

Hi Demolala, The real secret behind my V score is years of reading. I believe that mugging up wordlists does not help much. Try to read as much as possible, anything- good newspapers, story books. But if you don't have much time left, perhaps you can check out some vocab building s/w from the net. How I used these software: Use them in test mode. Try to guess answers if you don't know a word. Keep track of where your guesses go wrong. Ofcourse Barron's wordlists are a must. As for Q, I don't think much preparation is needed. If you keep a cool head, pace yourself well and avoid silly mistakes, 800 is within your grasp. The preparatory materials I used were: Barron's Guide, The Princeton Review, Arco's Gre book and CDs of Kaplan, TPR, Powerprep. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. Ramya

Hi everyone, My university does not award GPAs , but I heard that it is better to convert your aggregate to GPA for applying. I followed the system suggested by Sri for calculating my GPA. Well, actually my aggregate is 75% which may sound pretty low. But the break-up is like First year: 81 % second in class Second year : 72% first Third year : 72 % fourth Since for different universities, highest aggregates vary, i feel that GPA will be a better option for me. The topper in our univ. generally stands at around 76 %. One more doubt, how do we send a record of the college topper or univ topper's score ? Xaero, I finished my toefl on 28. my score is 240-297. I haven't decided my area of specialisation yet but I am intersted in Image processing, bioinformatics , pattern recognition. What abt u ? Thanks everyone .

Hi Seeny Thanks for those links ! What are your plans ?