Another thing. When a university says pgre is not required, but encouraged, would it be a nice idea to submit a score in the 600s or not?
Happy application season everyone

Do we consider GRE scores? Carefully. On the down side, various studies show that GRE scores do not correlate highly with ultimate success in physics, and that there is a gender bias in the GRE testing methods. We are keenly aware of this. Even so, GRE scores seem to be a better discriminator of success than grades, the latter having lost some of their value owing to grade inflation. So no application is considered without the full set of GRE scores.
In at least one top astro program it is the norm to define a few hard cuts with PGRE and Verbal GRE (for native english speakers). There can also be soft cuts where the committee prefers PGRE above something like 60th percentile, but will sometimes admit people down into the 30ths if there are spectacular references/research.vesperlynd wrote:Second, your friend's score is great, but I'm sure he had excellent recommendations. I was told that recs and research count for about 70%, grades about 15%, PGRE about 10%, and the SOP about 5%.
Third, about the PGRE. A) My advisor told me that there is basically a threshold for scores and above that, there's no correlation between scores and success in grad school. B) A professor visiting my school said that the PGRE and research ability were slightly negatively correlated. Whether this applies to physics departments as well, I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if it does.
I completely disagree with this. They are at least equally "gameable". When someone doesn't speak English as their first language and can score in the 600s by memorizing words I'd say that's not too difficult. As far as the VGRE being a great measure of future success, who honestly believes that crock of crap? Eh, maybe I'm just biased due to my moderate Verbal score. =Ptreblkickd wrote:This is especially useful in a world where the PGRE is extremely prep-/gameable, and the VGRE much less so.
Even though they're technically sophomore level, they're popularly recognized as "weeder courses".PHYS 227 Elementary Mathematical Physics (4) NW
Applications of mathematics in physics with emphasis on the mechanics of particles and continuous systems. Develops and applies computational methods, both analytic and numerical. Prerequisite: either MATH 134, MATH 135, MATH 136, or MATH 308 any of which may be taken concurrently, or MATH 318; 2.0 in PHYS 123. Offered: AWS.
PHYS 228 Elementary Mathematical Physics (4) NW
Applications of mathematics in physics with emphasis on the mechanics of particles and continuous systems. Develops and applies computational methods, both analytic and numerical. Prerequisite: PHYS 227. Offered: AW.
I remembered reading the verbal thing somewhere before so I went a head and searched for it and found it here: http://swps.berkeley.edu/appgs.pdfWhoaNonstop wrote:I completely disagree with this. They are at least equally "gameable". When someone doesn't speak English as their first language and can score in the 600s by memorizing words I'd say that's not too difficult. As far as the VGRE being a great measure of future success, who honestly believes that crock of crap? Eh, maybe I'm just biased due to my moderate Verbal score. =Ptreblkickd wrote:This is especially useful in a world where the PGRE is extremely prep-/gameable, and the VGRE much less so.
-Riley
Wow, this advice is quite amazing.If you do a research project (e.g. REU) at a non-academic institution (e.g. govt. lab)
make sure the person writing your recommendation letters can make a useful
comparison of your performance with those of other students. General statements such
as “I was amazed how quickly Amanda learned how to analyze the data” are nice but
useless for admission committees. We are looking for “I was impressed that within a
month Amanda taught herself IDL, learned how to extract and calibrate data from the
BLAH database and re-plot them in the new co-ordinate system she developed with my
assistance. I have worked with 10 students over the past 3 summers and the only student
of her caliber is now finishing a PhD at Top Notch U.”
I didn't post to start an argument. I'm just sharing first-hand information from one school.WhoaNonstop wrote:I completely disagree with this. They are at least equally "gameable". When someone doesn't speak English as their first language and can score in the 600s by memorizing words I'd say that's not too difficult. As far as the VGRE being a great measure of future success, who honestly believes that crock of crap? Eh, maybe I'm just biased due to my moderate Verbal score. =Ptreblkickd wrote:This is especially useful in a world where the PGRE is extremely prep-/gameable, and the VGRE much less so.
-Riley
WhoaNonstop wrote:I completely disagree with this. They are at least equally "gameable". When someone doesn't speak English as their first language and can score in the 600s by memorizing words I'd say that's not too difficult. As far as the VGRE being a great measure of future success, who honestly believes that crock of crap? Eh, maybe I'm just biased due to my moderate Verbal score. =Ptreblkickd wrote:This is especially useful in a world where the PGRE is extremely prep-/gameable, and the VGRE much less so.
-Riley
Princeton has a high PGRE average, but their graduate student body is ~57% international, so I have to wonder if that number is skewed just for that reason. Cornell is ~27%, UCSC ~11%, Arizona ~23%, U.Chicago ~17%, Colorado ~6% (AIP graduate enrollment statistics 2009).vesperlynd wrote:
Of astro departments, Santa Cruz's average is usually around a 60%, Colorado's is a 60%, Cornell's 60+%, Arizona's around 50%, Chicago's around 70%, Harvard I have no idea, but I know you can get in with below a 50%. Princeton is the only school I know of where the PGRE matters a lot (average is around 85-90%).
Part of it is undoubtedly that private Universities can afford more international students. You'll notice all the public Universities have significantly lower percentages. (Harvard is at ~37%.)InquilineKea wrote:Wow, does anyone know why so much of Princeton's student body is international?
InquilineKea wrote:Hm, what about analytical GRE? Does that matter?
Yes, there are really both hard cuts and soft cuts. Even hard cuts aren't necessarily hard, if the person gets special permission to get his application through (hard GPA cuts are especially unfair to undergrads coming from Caltech and Chicago, since both institutions practice grade deflation).
I kind of know where you're coming from and agree with you. My original language (I always mark it as my second so I don't have to take English exams when entering a school) is traditionally oral, it has only been written down for a little over half a century. My dad grew up speaking my language fluently, but was horrible at reading/writing when his generation was shoved into boarding schools. Yet, he is great at reading English... just not very good at speaking it. I grew up speaking both (despite minor speech problems) and it took me a long time to get into reading/writing either one. The odd thing about it is that all my applications will say that I'm a domestic US Citizen next year... and I know I will have a low verbal score.kapil_ds wrote:WhoaNonstop wrote:I completely disagree with this. They are at least equally "gameable". When someone doesn't speak English as their first language and can score in the 600s by memorizing words I'd say that's not too difficult. As far as the VGRE being a great measure of future success, who honestly believes that crock of crap? Eh, maybe I'm just biased due to my moderate Verbal score. =Ptreblkickd wrote:This is especially useful in a world where the PGRE is extremely prep-/gameable, and the VGRE much less so.
-Riley
Riley,
I don't know about the Chinese but I can provide some Indian perspective here using myself as a typical example.
First, one needs to differentiate between speaking a language vs. reading/writing in a language. My mother tongue is Hindi but I have been reading and writing in English since elementary school. My entire education since 5th grade has been in English with Hindi just being another subject. It should not come as a surprise then if some non-native english speakers can do well in Verbal GRE.
I think Verbal GRE is harder than PGRE. First, memorizing words is hard by itself. In addition, majority of words have multiple meanings and even various shades of meanings. Distinguishing between the shades of meanings in order to find the right relationship with another word is pretty damn hard.
In my undergrad institution, (IIT, which has some very smart people), Verbal GRE was a scourge. I have seen enough people getting decimated in that section.
Kapil