A Chronicle of my Changing Times.

GRE, applications, and loose ends...

This past weekend I headed to Sofia once again to take the GRE again.  With my travels to Italy and being busy at school and with projects, I hadn't spent nearly as much time studying as I'd wanted.  In all truthfulness I barely studied at all.  I was comfortable with my scores on the Verbal section and simply wanted to take the essay and math sections again.  Being fairly confident in my writing abilities, I managed to complete the math review.  Realistically, this was only a couple evenings worth of work, but I stretched it out over a week.

Instead of staying with another PCV who lives in Sofia, I opted to go to my normal hostel which is literally a block away from the Fulbright testing center.  Upon arriving in Sofia I immediately went out with a friend who I'd been anxious to see and ended out walking around a rather deserted center of Sofia until close to 2am.  It was a fun time, relaxing even - I even sang a few American Christmas Carols to my friend - but probably not wise to do the evening before the test.

But I wasn't really worried about the exam.  So I got up the next morning, had my usual Coca-Cola breakfast and headed to the test center.  To my surprise I met another PCV there, Gina.  After seeing us talking, the other 9 or so test takers became more talkative themselves and I ended up in conversations with a number of them.  This definite change in atmosphere than the past time where no one dared speak to each other.

Once in the exam, I got through my essays in good time and came to the Verbal section.  I actually thought I could tell the difference in the fact that I hadn't studied.  The words were fairly familiar but I couldn't put my finger on the exact answer a number of times.  So I guessed, of course.

The math section, however, surprised me.  I couldn't believe how much simpler it was after just doing that math review I hadn't done previously.  It was almost too easy.  I actually started to question if I was getting the answers correct since with the computer based exam, correct answers mean the next question is supposedly harder whilst incorrect ones lead to easier questions.

So with a bit of trepidation I came to the screen where you choose whether to register your scores or not.  To my surprise however I did wonderfully well on both Verbal and Math, raising my scores significantly on both.  These were the scores I'd hoped for the first time I took the test, ones that put me above the average applicant in the programs I'm applying.  This was a shot of confidence that maybe, just maybe, I'll get into one of these schools.

Much more happened whilst I was in Sofia, but that's another posting.  For now, I'm busy catching up with work and projects whilst also trying to pull together personal statements, recommendations, and my resume.  It's like working over two full time jobs at once and I honestly have been going to be around 3 or 4 am this past week only to get up at 7 to go to work.  But in less than a week I'll be back in American for Christmas, so getting all this work done now will be worth it.

Posted by: mjmarble at December 09, 2006 22:50 | link | comments
grad school

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