Transferring

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meggo
Posts: 43
Joined: Mon Nov 09, 2009 12:44 pm

Transferring

Post by meggo » Mon Nov 09, 2009 12:58 pm

So...I've been lurking on here for a while, and calling to get my 10/09 PGRE scores this morning finally motivated me to post. I'm currently in an astrophysics program at a Big 10 school, and I'm trying to transfer to Cornell's program. I had a decent but not great undergrad GPA (3.65), and the same for grad school so far (3.38). I've got some good research, I'll have good letters of recommendation (especially from a prof in the Cornell astro department), I do tons of outreach, ran a student organization in undergrad, and got like 300 credits in my undergrad (2 degrees + minor). But I am not sure how worried I should be about my physics GRE score.

I got a 600/36% in April 07, a 670/51% in October 07 (though it now shows up as a 48% on my score report), and now a 680/50% on this last exam (I only got through 56 questions). I also took the test last Saturday, but I obviously don't know that score yet. I really had hoped to improve by at least 10% on this last one (especially because I studied for a really long time). So now I'm kind of freaking out, because I am worried that having an average GRE score will preclude me from admission.

Is a 50% as bad as I think it is, considering that I have already had a year of grad school and didn't improve over my last test? I guess I'm not sure if I can just "explain away" this score after a year of grad school, except for the fact that I do at least 35 hours of research a week on top of all of the other grad school-related hoops, and that I just work really slowly.

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grae313
Posts: 2296
Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 8:46 pm

Re: Transferring

Post by grae313 » Mon Nov 09, 2009 2:04 pm

It's really tough to say, but I think astro is generally a bit more lenient on your PGRE score than physics, and having a letter of rec from a Cornell prof will really help. You might as well just apply and see how it goes!



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