Well, some numskull decided he'd be the next gun-wielder from hell today at NIU. I'm not sure how many people were shot or how many, if any, have been killed. I'm safe and sound, as are most of my philosophy classmates. The helicopters hovering over campus are making it a bit difficult to read.
In other news, I received this book in the mail today. With all the hoopla, I'm looking forward to fixing some tea and sitting down to read a few articles, especially one by L.A. Paul, someone I might be working with at Arizona.
Update: Six are confirmed dead, *including* the sick bastard.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Earliest Offers
For those of us out there anxious about hearing back from programs, here's a little fix.
For the schools I'm applying to, I've compiled a list of the earliest made offers on record at Gradcafe. This means a few things. First, there might have been earlier offers that weren't submitted to gradcafe. Second, just because programs did things a certain way at a certain time last year does not mean that it will carry over to this year. And third, these dates are the earliest dates, and the dates range from these until about April 15th. But one thing is pretty clear, if you haven't heard in Feb or in the first week of March, you aren't in the first round of offers.
2/08
Indiana, UNC
2/15
MIT, Notre Dame
2/17
OSU
2/20
Boulder
2/21
UMass
2/23
Yale
2/24
Syracuse
2/28
Princeton
3/01
Arizona, Rutgers
And I have no information about Rochester. For those who are accepted, the typical means of communication is either by phone or email, and rejections typically follow the notifications of acceptances, usually by snailmail or email in late Feb. and early March. For those you don't hear otherwise, you're probably either on an official (in which case you'll be notified) or unofficial waitlist. Other decisions are either lost or have a rejection decision awaiting you on the application status webpage.
For the schools I'm applying to, I've compiled a list of the earliest made offers on record at Gradcafe. This means a few things. First, there might have been earlier offers that weren't submitted to gradcafe. Second, just because programs did things a certain way at a certain time last year does not mean that it will carry over to this year. And third, these dates are the earliest dates, and the dates range from these until about April 15th. But one thing is pretty clear, if you haven't heard in Feb or in the first week of March, you aren't in the first round of offers.
2/08
Indiana, UNC
2/15
MIT, Notre Dame
2/17
OSU
2/20
Boulder
2/21
UMass
2/23
Yale
2/24
Syracuse
2/28
Princeton
3/01
Arizona, Rutgers
And I have no information about Rochester. For those who are accepted, the typical means of communication is either by phone or email, and rejections typically follow the notifications of acceptances, usually by snailmail or email in late Feb. and early March. For those you don't hear otherwise, you're probably either on an official (in which case you'll be notified) or unofficial waitlist. Other decisions are either lost or have a rejection decision awaiting you on the application status webpage.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
GRE Info, as promised
If anyone out there is planning on taking the GRE, here's how I'd go about it.
*If you can afford to take a GRE class with the Princeton Review, do it. If not, if you can afford to take an online class with Princeton Review, do it. The average score increase is 210 points.
1. Learn the 3,500 words in the 50 wordlists of Barron's GRE prep book. It takes a LOT of time, but it's *definitely* worth it. I would start two months ahead of time and devote almost two hours a day. That way, the last few weeks you're just reviewing instead of learning new material.
2. Do all of the Math review and all of the questions in the same Barron's prep book. I would also start this about 2 months before your exam. If you get a question wrong, work it until you understand it. For those of us who haven't had math or are not naturally good at it, this might take awhile. However, this will have a HUGE payoff. It is really quite easy to raise your quantitative score.
3. Do all the practice tests in Barron's. And if you contact me, I can get your hands on dozens of very valuable computer adaptive tests. The more practice tests you take once you've learned most of the material, the more relaxed you'll be on test day.
4. Get the ETS book of paper-based tests. This is really good practice for reading comp. The quantitative questions are a bit too easy.
5. Download ETS's Powerprep software from their website. Make sure you do ALL of the practice questions in both verbal and quantitative. This may be your most valuable practice because the format and question types are EXACTLY like what you'll see on the test. If you get any question wrong, go back and fix it until you understand why you got it wrong.
6. Two weeks before the actual exam, take the first Powerprep test. From your results, you'll know where any deficiencies are-shore those up.
7. Two to three days before the actual exam, take the second Powerprep test. This will give you almost the exact score you'll get on the real exam.
8. The day before the exam, drive to the testing facility so you aren't stressed about being on time or getting lost.
9. Don't worry if you can't sleep. Try to, but if you can't, just drink coffee the next day (and make sure you scheduled it for later in the day if you're not a morning person).
10. Arrive early- often you'll be able to take it right when you arrive. This eliminates more minutes of worrying and anxiety.
11. Don't freak out if your first section is ridiculously hard and you think you basically crapped all over the keyboard. This happened to me, but the first section turned out to be experimental. I stuck in there and the real quantitative section (the last portion of the test) was a breeze.
12. Relax.
Words of Wisdom: I have more advice and materials, perhaps illegal, so if you want to know about them, email or call me. I did all of the above and increased my score from a 1310 to a 1510. This crap works. Also, I cannot stress how important the Powerprep tests are. This is how good of an indicator they are:
PP1: two weeks before the actual exam - 780 verbal/760 quantitative
PP2: 3 days before the exam - 730 verbal/ 790 quantitative
Real exam: 740 verbal / 770 quantitative. Thus, my real score was just a bit lower than the average for each section of both tests.
P.S. If you have more than a year to prepare, try to get a job with the Princeton Review. This is what I did. Being in the world of test prep, and teaching ACT, SAT, and LSAT helped tremendously. And I know this especially helped on both quantitative and reading comprehension.
Good Luck!
*If you can afford to take a GRE class with the Princeton Review, do it. If not, if you can afford to take an online class with Princeton Review, do it. The average score increase is 210 points.
1. Learn the 3,500 words in the 50 wordlists of Barron's GRE prep book. It takes a LOT of time, but it's *definitely* worth it. I would start two months ahead of time and devote almost two hours a day. That way, the last few weeks you're just reviewing instead of learning new material.
2. Do all of the Math review and all of the questions in the same Barron's prep book. I would also start this about 2 months before your exam. If you get a question wrong, work it until you understand it. For those of us who haven't had math or are not naturally good at it, this might take awhile. However, this will have a HUGE payoff. It is really quite easy to raise your quantitative score.
3. Do all the practice tests in Barron's. And if you contact me, I can get your hands on dozens of very valuable computer adaptive tests. The more practice tests you take once you've learned most of the material, the more relaxed you'll be on test day.
4. Get the ETS book of paper-based tests. This is really good practice for reading comp. The quantitative questions are a bit too easy.
5. Download ETS's Powerprep software from their website. Make sure you do ALL of the practice questions in both verbal and quantitative. This may be your most valuable practice because the format and question types are EXACTLY like what you'll see on the test. If you get any question wrong, go back and fix it until you understand why you got it wrong.
6. Two weeks before the actual exam, take the first Powerprep test. From your results, you'll know where any deficiencies are-shore those up.
7. Two to three days before the actual exam, take the second Powerprep test. This will give you almost the exact score you'll get on the real exam.
8. The day before the exam, drive to the testing facility so you aren't stressed about being on time or getting lost.
9. Don't worry if you can't sleep. Try to, but if you can't, just drink coffee the next day (and make sure you scheduled it for later in the day if you're not a morning person).
10. Arrive early- often you'll be able to take it right when you arrive. This eliminates more minutes of worrying and anxiety.
11. Don't freak out if your first section is ridiculously hard and you think you basically crapped all over the keyboard. This happened to me, but the first section turned out to be experimental. I stuck in there and the real quantitative section (the last portion of the test) was a breeze.
12. Relax.
Words of Wisdom: I have more advice and materials, perhaps illegal, so if you want to know about them, email or call me. I did all of the above and increased my score from a 1310 to a 1510. This crap works. Also, I cannot stress how important the Powerprep tests are. This is how good of an indicator they are:
PP1: two weeks before the actual exam - 780 verbal/760 quantitative
PP2: 3 days before the exam - 730 verbal/ 790 quantitative
Real exam: 740 verbal / 770 quantitative. Thus, my real score was just a bit lower than the average for each section of both tests.
P.S. If you have more than a year to prepare, try to get a job with the Princeton Review. This is what I did. Being in the world of test prep, and teaching ACT, SAT, and LSAT helped tremendously. And I know this especially helped on both quantitative and reading comprehension.
Good Luck!
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