Most of the application deadlines are coming up and this is the crunch time for applicants. Unfortunately in some countries the test taking slots outnumber the applicants and some of them end up getting a test date very close to or even after the application deadlines. But there is hope.

Applicants who find themselves in this situation should focus on submitting the online application on time, irrespective of the availability of the test score. If the GRE, GMAT or TOEFL score is not known, leave the field blank. If the field is mandatory just write 0 and submit the application. But the application must be submitted on time, else there will be no hope. After submitting the online application, the applicant should send an email to the graduate admission office of the University and graduate advisor of the Department, explaining that her test score will be delayed and requesting to consider the application as soon as the score is reported. The applicant should again inform that University and the department soon after taking the test – and report their unofficial score or the range, as available.

The applicants are strongly advised to follow up with ETS about the score being reported to the University, and also follow up with the department via emails, but do not overdo it. Meanwhile you can check the application status online, but for most of the universities the application status is woefully behind the real-time, specially during the peak months of January and February. While a “GRE score received” always means that the score was received, but “GRE score not received” does not mean much, as the University is busy with processing the applications rather than updating the online status.

Please bear in mind that not all universities are equally flexible but above guideline is a good way to move forward, should you find yourself in the tight spot. Good luck with the applications.

1. Opt for a morning slot: Most people are more alert and efficient in the mornings. The brain is relatively tired in the afternoon. A heavy lunch and feeling sleepy could bring down your GRE GMAT or TOEFL score drastically.


2. Visit the exam center on the previous day: This is very important. You must locate the exam center, understand the entry, parking, and locate the actual test room within a large building well in advance. If you are from a different city, reach the place one day in advance and visit the exam center during the normal working hours. In some countries security will not let you in the building, which is Ok. Make yourself familiar to the place till the point you are allowed. This will reduce anxiety and delays on the exam day.


3. Sleep well: There is no use studying a bit more at the cost of relaxing a bit more. Remember GRE or GMAT do not test difficult concepts, rather the ability to handle the test is tested. People who are more relaxed are likely to perform better.


4. Carry required identification: Obviously if you do not carry the required documents you will not be allowed and you will forfeit the fees. Carrying some document which is not clear in some way will lead to unnecessary arguments with test administrators. They have nothing to lose.


5. Carry a light jacket/sweater: In our vast combined experience with GRE/GMAT/TOEFL Other standardized test centers we have noticed that air conditioning is not their core competency. The testing room is either too cold or too warm. Complaining to the admin and requesting to alter the temperature will waste YOUR time and nothing would change anyway. So dress in layers so that you can quickly adjust your clothing according to the conditions before the dreaded clock starts.


6. Reach the center well before time: If you get delayed in traffic you will be anxious and that will impact your performance. Avoid that possibility and plan to arrive one hour before the exam, two hours in cities like Mumbai and Bangkok where traffic could be more challenging.


7. Eat right: The success on GRE and GMAT depends a lot on how well you perform during those 3-4 hours. Hunger can distract and overeating could induce sleep. A heavy meal can lead to one extra trip to you know where and that could be a disaster. Depending on your knowledge of yourself and keeping the above words of wisdom in mind, plan to eat right. A fruit before the test is a good choice.


8. Locate the toilets/restrooms: Locate the toilets/restrooms before the examThere are more than one short breaks during the tests. If you do not come back to your seat within the stipulated time the next section will start and your American dreams will start to evaporate with the clock ticking and you still being at the wrong place. So please locate the most important room in the building before the test and remember the shortest path to it!


9. Follow all instructions: Before your test the admin will pass on some instruction and take your photograph. Just follow whatever is told. Save your brains for inside the test room, do not use it outside with the test admins.


10. Honesty is the best policy: app2us strongly recommends that you leave behind all your papers, currency notes, calculators, cell phones, USB drives and yet to be discovered future gadgets in a locker provided outside the test room. No writings on the shirt or your palm please. A permanent ban on all testing or worse things can happen.


Good Luck and let us know how these tips worked for you.

GRE and TOEFL are so different that ideally we should not need a blog post on this topic. However a vast majority of beginners in the process of applying to US universities are so confused that they often have a blurred understanding about the two tests.

GRE General Test is a test of intellectual preparation and consists of three sections verbal, quantitative and analytical writing ability. TOEFL – Test of English as a Foreign Language – is a test of minimum understanding of English and measures writing, speaking and listening abilities. The Verbal section of GRE and the TOEFL both are tests of English, but they measure very different aspects of your English abilities. Someone having exceptionally high verbal ability and good grasp of English language is likely to excel at both the tests. Someone with average verbal ability will do average on GRE verbal, but can still ace the TOEFL. The reason is simple, TOEFL is a much easier test.

The biggest difference between GRE and TOEFL lies in the purpose and importance of the two tests. To best illustrate the difference, let us take you along the steps of applying. Let us consider a student who has scores 73 in TOEFL and 550 and 790 in GRE verbal and quantitative sections respectively. This student is applying to Princeton University. As per Princeton website, the minimum required TOEFL iBT score is 71. The average GRE scores of successful student in recent years for Engineering programs id 580 verbal and 785 quant. TOEFL is a qualifying exam. All applicants at Princeton who scored 70 or below in TOEFL shall be rejected, without looking at the other aspect of their application. Since the student scored more than 70, his application will pass the TOEFL screening. Now the application will be considered by the admission committee. Whether she scored 73 or 119 does not matter at all. Now as you can see her verbal score is below average of the successful applicants and quant score is little above average. At this stage the GRE score will be considered along with all other factors like academic grades, research, letters of recommendation and the SOP. If one or more of these aspects are very impressive she will get admitted even if the verbal score is a bit low.

Now let us consider the same student applying to Purdue University. The minimum required TOEFL iBT score is 77. The average GRE scores of successful student in recent years for Engineering programs at Purdue is 510 verbal and 740 quant. Please note that the TOEFL requirement is higher than her score, whereas the GRE expectations are significantly below her score. At the TOEFL screening level, all applicants who scored below 77 shall be rejected. So her application will never reach the department for consideration, no matter how strong other credentials might be.

Another key difference is in the amount of study needed. Although this is very subjective, an average student who is not a native speaker of English can easily devote six months pf studies for GRE Verbal alone, assuming one hour of effort per day. Same student would need approximately one month of preparation for the TOEFL.

Many students ask how much should I aim for. Our answer is you should score as much as possible. However to put a number, a score of 600 out of 800 is considered a good score. A TOEFL score of 105 out of 200 can be considered more than sufficient to get you in any University, as the required TOEFL score is between 75 and 100 for most top universities.

ETS has announced in late 2007 that two types of questions are being included in the GRE General Test. You may see one new Quantitative or one new Verbal question type in your test. Like other experimental questions, these questions initially might not have appeared, or did not count towards actual score. However, these new question types will now be counted towards the scores as soon as an adequate sample of data has been collected. Since that can happen any day, or might have already happened, you need to treat the questions seriously and be prepared.

New Verbal question includes a short text with two or three numbered blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. You are asked to fill all the blanks in the way that best completes the text. You can find more details here .

Questions of this type ask you to enter your answer either as a number in a single answer box or as a fraction in two separate boxes — one for the numerator and one for the denominator – using the computer mouse and keyboard. The trickiest part in this type is to make sure you pay attention to the rounding off. If you calculate the answer correctly as 9.38 and the answer is expected to be rounded to one decimal place, only 9.4 will be treated as the correct answer. You can find more details here .

In another significant change, the Reading Comprehension questions have traditionally contained line numbers that reference specific parts of the passages. Those line numbers are being replaced with highlighting when necessary in order to focus the test taker on specific information in the passage.

Reference: This article is based on the official ETS announcement which is publicly available on their website.

In recent months a lot of students are asking this question. Since it may be of interest to many of our users, we decided to respond in detail. There are different ways to look at this. Before we proceed please be reminded that GRE is one of many factors and a great GRE score does not guarantee admission or funding.

A simple answer to this question is the applicant should do her best and try to score as much as possible.

Some students are always trying to find out how much GRE is good enough to get into top 10 universities. Let’s assume for a minute that the answer is 600 in verbal and 780 in quant. But nobody is stopping you from scoring 700 in verbal and 800 in quant and increases your chances, rather than apply with minimum qualifications.

It is really important to understand your potential and how much you can possibly score, rather than how much you should score. Once you understand your potential and study for the test, chances are that you will achieve it. For anybody who received an engineering degree from anywhere on the planet, a score of 780 is realistically possible. But most applicants who take GRE do not score 780 plus. Out of the vast number of applicants with science and engineering background, those who really score 780 plus are those who complete the test and mark all right answers except one or two wrong answers. Does it take a mathematical genius to answer 37 out of 37 GRE questions correctly? No. But it does take practice, concentration, timing and accuracy. Not everyone can do this in a stressful environment. It is those who cannot take the stress end up with scores below 750.

To estimate the potential score in verbal is rather complicated. The score gradation is not like quant, and scoring is not as easy. Score of 790 in quantitative section approximately corresponds to 90th percentile, but only 640 in verbal corresponds to 90th percentile. To put it differently 700 is easy to score in quant but very difficult and rare in verbal. If you are not a native speaker of English, but had lifelong studies in English (like students from India/Singapore) 600 is a realistic goal, if you were one of the better students of English at your school and college. Otherwise 550 might be a challenging target. If you started to learn English late in life and are not fully conversational, then after considerable studies, you might be able to score 500A lot depends on the individual but above gives you some idea of what can you possible score. But the best part is even if you score 400 in verbal, admission committee might be able to ignore it based on your country of origin and your other accomplishments.

So the bottom line is, understand the difference in scoring pattern of the two sections, study for the test practice for the speed and give your best shot. At the end of the day applying to US universities is a competitive process and performing very well in the GRE General Test is a good way to keep you ahead of other applicants.


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The new score-reporting feature for SAT will be in effect starting spring 2009, and will be first available to students participating in the March 2009 SAT test administration. Students will be able to select which scores they send to colleges. The new feature is optional, if students do not opt for it, all scores will be sent by default.

The advantage of this policy is that the student will not be penalized for one bad day during the test. However the disadvantages are many. It is not easy to take the test multiple times for those with limited financial resources. But rich kids can take the test over and over again till they get a decent score. The College Board claims that the new rule is designed to reduce student stress and improve the test-day experience. It will potentially increase the stress for those who know due to financial reason it is their first and last chance, while others can retake if they mess up. Also by taking the test multiple times a test taker can get unfair advantage. The practice and experience of the real test helps the next time. Whether or not the new system will help the admission process and its various stakeholders remains to be seen.

Many students post questions on our forum about their low AWA scores. GRE General Test score is one of many criteria for admission and do not make your break our application. Among the three sections of GRE AWA is of least significance.

Most Universities do not have a minimum AWA cut off. Do not worry if you get a low AWA score. If you got 2.5 or more you are ok.

If you got less than 2.5 and you really think you did well on AWA, there is a process to challenge the score. (AWA only). It costs $55 for the computer bases test. For the details on the AWA score review process click here .

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) is a qualifying exam. Most Universities specify a minimum TOEFL score, which varies. Even within same University, different departments may have different scores.

If your TOEFL score is below the minimum, do not apply to that University. You can always find another equally good University with a lower TOEFL requirement.

If your TOEFL score is very high, it is nice but it does not help much.

Some Universities (example Texas A&M University, College Station) waive the TOEFL requirement if the applicants GRE verbal score is above a particular cutoff.

On the day of the GRE GMAT and TOEFL tests, there is an option to report your score to upto 4 Universities for free. This is a significant opportunity to save a lot of dollars if you plan ahead.

Identify ten Universities where you would like to apply. Then identify the middle four according to ranking and reputation. These are the safest Universities to report your score to. In case you end up with a very low GRE score then you may still be applying to these 4 Universities as against your dream school which could be ruled out due to a poor score. If you do not do careful planning then you may end up wasting this wonderful opportunity.

Test takers may encounter one of these new questions in the Verbal Reasoning or Quantitative Reasoning sections of the computer-based GRE General Test. The new Verbal question type is a text completion question that requires the test taker to fill in two or three blanks within a passage from separate multiple-choice lists. Currently, the Verbal section contains text completion questions that require test takers to fill in one blank within a passage from a single multiple-choice list. The new Quantitative question type will be a numeric entry question that requires test takers to type their answer as a number in a box, or as a fraction in two boxes.

Test takers can review sample questions and additional information about the new question types on the GRE website.For more information about the GRE General Test, visit www.ets.org/gre. Test takers can e-mail questions to gre-info@ets.org or call (609) 771-7670.

Source: ETS Press Release