Applying to US universities: Stage 1 :GRE

Disclaimer : This series of blogs is not intended to be a guide on how to apply to US universities. In fact reading the contents may cause you to re-evaluate your decision to do the above. Read ahead if you are strong of heart and know no fear!!

Stage 1: Stage 1 of the whole process turned out to be the easiest in retrospect. After months of slogging and freaking out imagining all possible consequences the day of GRE arrived. Now GRE is a funny exam. You never seem to take it seriously till its almost too late. I even had the temerity to go on a trip abroad two weeks before the exam. Four days before the exam I found myself with 8 word lists to complete and a sizeable portion of maths left. The beauty of engineering is that I was well prepared for such an event and managed to complete the lists 8 hours before my exam. Finishing Quant seemed like an impossible task at that moment but like a shower refreshing a parched land; Dr Raju entered my life bringing hope at that darkest of times. Dr Raju's Quant Database on Orkut saved the day as will be evident later.


The day of the exam :

The level of security at the testing centre is equivalent to that of a mid-size US prison and is enough to unnerve you before the exam. I walked into the booth and sat down at my seat. I felt slightly nauseous and my eyes were swimming. Cold sweat formed on my brow. I looked up at the cieling and worded a noiseless prayer. After days of expectation the moment of reckoning was finally here.

The essay and argument sections were completed without much bother. It seemed luck was finally shining in my favour. I then started with the verbal section of the test. It seemed all my confidence had drained away. Every question seemed to hide intricacies, a certain reluctance to confirm the answer seemed to have gripped my system. Proceeding in this manner I found myself with 10 questions to finish in the last five minutes. " Please God!! no more passages!" was the thought in my head as I clicked on the 26th question and et voila a 30 lines passage greeted my disbelieving eyes. Sometimes I wonder why I pray!!

Fortunately I was able to complete the verbal section in time and proceed to the quant section. The second question I got was of a level which I had never seen in the practise tests I had given. Scratching my head; I strained my intellect to its very limit hoping to find a solution to this unforeseen problem. Getting an answer wrong this early would be akin to suicide. Five minutes passed with no break-through and the test seemed to be slipping through my fingers. Left with no option I clicked on option c and went to the next question. As expected I was left with hardly any time to complete the last few questions. But Dr Raju came to my rescue as the last 4-5 questions were directly from the database and I knew the answers to these questions.


How 3 hours passed by; I will never know but staring at me was a screen asking me to choose between reporting my scores or deleting them to avoid public humiliation. My mind went into over-drive as I threshed out the course of action. I was sure that I had messed up and cancelling the test courses would be the wisest decision. However a small voice in my head argued that I had paid 150 dollars for the test and cancelling it would be foolish. Finally gathering up the courage I pressed the report score button. The computer was not so easily convinced; again the same question appeared. Again the process repeated. I pressed the report score button again.

The screen went blank and my mind resorted to the same recourse. I stared dumbly at the figures on the screen. It took me a minute to register that I had scored a 1510 in GRE. A stupid grin spread on my face as relief flowed through my body. I had gone through a gruelling test and come out unscathed and I believed the biggest hurdle in the way of my dream of doing an M.S had been crossed. (If Only I knew!!)

( Stage 2 consists of selecting universities and filling out the forms : the horror stories associated with the process will be updated in the next few days; keep watching this space [ or rather the one below this!] for updates)