I took the GRE again this morning. Last month I was generally pleased with my rather respectable verbal 690, quantitative 720, analysis 5.5. Not greatly pleased, but pleased enough. But, hey, it never hurts to try again with some experience under your belt.
And I’m glad I did. I am super pleased with the (admittedly tentative) results they provided me after the test was over: verbal 750, quantitative 800. I feel my analysis work was a bit weaker than last time through, but I was still pretty pleased with it.
So this pretty much kicks any lingering anxiety regarding my standardized test scores hindering my grad school applications. Now I just need to finish up my totally awesome writing sample and keep working on building contacts and simple relationships. There is, unfortunately, nothing I can do about my GPA at this point (tainted as it is by a misspent youth), but I can live with that.
Now all I have to do is pass my classes this semester, assemble the writing sample in question, get myself down to a managable number of schools to apply to, and assemple statements of intent for those schools. All entirely managable.
I am, needless to say, pretty pumped at the moment. I don’t know why, but I feel a bit more like I really am going to go to grad school. Which is just plain awesome.
Thomas