[nabs-l] Grad school

[Jim Reed]

Liz, 

I will start with your question regarding contacting the schools. If you have questions about the school, the program, or the application process, by all means contact the school. In fact, by talking to your admisions dept., and the head of the Masters program, you can get a pretty good idea as to what they are looking for in an applicant; some schools place more emphasis on GRE scores, some place more emphasis on undergrad grades, some even place an emphasis on non-academic characterisitics such as work/vollenter experience, and believe it or not, sometimes where you are from plays a role. 

I will elaborate on the last one. In graduate school, unlike undergrad school, you learn as much, if not more from your classmates as you do from the teacher and textbook. Good graduate programs realize this, and they try to create diversity amongst there graduate class. In the view of the graduate program director, he is not simply accepting a student, he is building a class.

Moving onto how/when to take GRE. Most university system's Board of Regents require that grad students take the GRE; for all intents and purposes, the will of the Board of Regents is equvilant to law. That said, many schools willnot even look at your application until it is complete; that means GRE scores, transcripts, letters of recomendations, and everything else required by the university must be turned in before you are considered. Other schools have what is called a provisional acceptance; that means you have been accepted even though you haven't met the minimum requirements for grad scvhool, or if your application packet is incomplete. Under a provisional admission, you are adminted provided you maintain appropreate grades and eventually provide all the required application materials.

Whether the school allows provisional admissions largely depends on the school; some prestigious schools recive so many applicants that they have the luxury to maintain a 20% (or less) acceptance rate while refusing to consider incomplete applications. For other schools that are in much more dire situations cannot afford to be picky. at these schools, you will be admited if you have a pulse and a checkbook.

As far as GRE accomidations, you must call the ETS accomidations department first. Remember, you MUST NOT sign up in the normal fashion if you need an accomidated test. The following web link is for the ETS' "resources for test takers with disabilities"
http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.435c0b5cc7bd0ae7015d9510c3921509/?vgnextoid=feb7be3a864f4010VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD

I did not use any accessable media for my breif preparation for the GRE so I dont know where you would go for accesable prep materials. Kaplan is a large publisher of GRE prep materials, you may try calling them.

I hope this begins to answer your questions. Let me know if I can be of further assistance

Jim
 

Homer Simpson's brain: "Use reverse psychology." 
 Homer: "Oh, that sounds too complicated." 
 Homer's brain: "Okay, don't use reverse psychology."
 Homer: "Okay, I will!"

Arielle and all, 

I have a lot of questions, but I'll start with a few: 

I have two schools that I'm looking at. I haven't yet taken the GRE, and I'm
wondering whether or not to take it first before contacting the schools, or
would it be better to contact the schools informing them of my interest and
say that I haven't yet taken the GRE, but am making the necessary
preparations to do so? Also, do I contact ETS first with accommodations, or
do I go through the local testing center here that offers the test? I'm also
trying to figure out how to obtain accessible practice materials. 

I think those are the basic things at the moment that I can think of off the
top of my head. 

Take care, 

Liz