Last Year vs. This Year
Last year, I took the GRE and expected the mailbox to be filled with glossy brochures from all manner of colleges and universities. After all, that's what happened after I took my PSATs many years ago-I'd come home to mail every day.
With a score almost two standard deviations above the mean, this is what was going to happen, right? (See, I can tell you that info now!). I scored better than 92% on one section of it, even, so it stands to reason that I'd be enticed to at least take a look at these awesome graduate schools.
It didn't quite work that way. My school doesn't require the GRE for my master's program, and many who take it are enrolling at that level must provide that score on their applications. As a result, the mail that I did get was for master's programs at teeny tiny Christian schools that had majors that did not appeal in the least. I assumed times have changed or that my scores sucked (this is before I got to see those means and deviations, mind you.)
However, something strange has happened in the past few weeks-a solid 11 weeks after starting a doctoral program-I'm getting emails from recruiters. These are coming from the top 20 schools in my program-and they know what my intended study field is.
So, it begs the question, did they get the information that I'm enrolled in a Ph.D program and used that to recruit me, or did they wait to see what the norms are on this GRE before seeking out prospective students? All I know is they're talking my language: free tuition and stipends, something that my school sorely lacks, especially after our governor took a heavy hand to my school's budget.
I suspect Thanksgiving break may be spent putting together application packets. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
With a score almost two standard deviations above the mean, this is what was going to happen, right? (See, I can tell you that info now!). I scored better than 92% on one section of it, even, so it stands to reason that I'd be enticed to at least take a look at these awesome graduate schools.
It didn't quite work that way. My school doesn't require the GRE for my master's program, and many who take it are enrolling at that level must provide that score on their applications. As a result, the mail that I did get was for master's programs at teeny tiny Christian schools that had majors that did not appeal in the least. I assumed times have changed or that my scores sucked (this is before I got to see those means and deviations, mind you.)
However, something strange has happened in the past few weeks-a solid 11 weeks after starting a doctoral program-I'm getting emails from recruiters. These are coming from the top 20 schools in my program-and they know what my intended study field is.
So, it begs the question, did they get the information that I'm enrolled in a Ph.D program and used that to recruit me, or did they wait to see what the norms are on this GRE before seeking out prospective students? All I know is they're talking my language: free tuition and stipends, something that my school sorely lacks, especially after our governor took a heavy hand to my school's budget.
I suspect Thanksgiving break may be spent putting together application packets. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
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