ever vigilant
Catherine and I finally pulled the trigger and registered for the GRE. Next Friday is the fateful day. I feel like a weight has been lifted -- it can't be that bad, right?
Luckily enough, I've immediately found an new, heavier, replacement weight: the GRE Subject Test. Pretty much every program I'm considering applying to wants you to take one, although they frequently don't tell you exactly which one. Biology, Cellular Biology and Computer Science are the best candidates, both for myself and the programs I'm interested in. The question is, which will I fail least spectacularly?
My major was Cognitive Science, which, while it encompasses all of these things, doesn't put me in a great position to take any of them. Right now CS is the frontrunner, primarily because a) it's shorter than the others b) a good chunk is just unusually boring logic questions c) the rest is definitions and d) I'm unlikely to be able to answer any bio question that doesn't involve neurons. The online study advice for each subject seems to either be "buy our miracle test taking strategy! $40!" or "consider obtaining an undergraduate degree in this field". It's a nice idea, and November is still a ways away, but that probably still only gives me enough time to memorize half of the fucking Kreb's Cycle.
Normally I'd just bring my pathetic case to Jeff and Marie, my oracles for all things graduate-schooly. However, as Chemical Engineers, their choice of subject test was pretty well self-evident. And also they're, you know, smart. So the whole blind panic thing is probably not a subject on which they can offer authoritative advice.
So what about you guys? Anybody taken a subject GRE, or know someone who has? How do the scores stack up against the general GRE? Do schools lean on subject tests heavily for admissions, or are they closer to the SAT II's -- a nice application bonus, but used primarily to determine what classes you need to brush up on? Finally, anybody taken one of these things and walked away thinking a respectable score could be obtained with well-directed cramming?
Comments
Kriston's old roommate took the English subject GRE, and while that sounds like a snooze, it was HAAAAAAAAAAARD and IMPORTANT. So I imagine real subjects like science are even HARDER and MORE IMPORTANT. I believe he did well, but he studied AAAAAALLLLL the time.
Does that help?
(just doing my part for the anxiety disorder drug industry)
Note that with the English GRE Subject, the entire exam survey British lit from the Renaissance through the 19th century, i.e., all the extremely boring stuff. I don't know for certain but I'm guessing that the tests you're cited can't be intentionally skewed to be even more boring, though there's a lot of range in the HAAAARRRRDD category.
my memory is failing me in my old age, but i seem to recall a number of programs requesting subject GRE's, but if you were to call them up and say "really?" they'd respond with "well... nah." I know I didn't take any subject tests. But I'd say CS is definitely your best bet. Those biology thangs are glorified vocabulary tests.
the computer science GRE is hard to prepare for because no good test-prep material really exists out there. this is probably due to the fact that it's still a relatively new subject in academia. also, with recent competition in computer science for graduate school spots, the test's curve has become horribly difficult compared to past years. it's a poor time to be going into cs, graduate school or employment wise.
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