MS Advice - GRE and TOEFL

Hello and welcome to the second blog in the series. This is happening quicker than I thought :-)).

As you probably know, it is a must for all students to write GRE to
secure admissions to graduate programs in USA. If your native language
is not English, you have to take TOEFL too. Both the exams are
administered by Educational Testing Service, or ETS. (www.ets.org)

GRE stands for Graduate Record Examination. It is designed to test your
understanding, reasoning and application skills. You can go through
the ETS website for more details on GRE format, rates etc. I won't bore
you with the content repeated there - but some things need to be kept
in mind:
- GRE math is easy, really easy, and for that reason
so much more competitive. Imagine a very easy test given to your class,
where everybody scores 95/100. If you score 90/100, you are lagging
behind. This is a major fact you need to realize early on your
preperation.
- Verbal is not as hard as people make it sound: if
you have a habit of reading books, speaking English daily, and
'thinking' about what you say, you should be fine. You do need to look
up a lot of words, but remember, somebody who has been reading English
novels since the age of 5 will know tons of more words than somebody
who mugs up a list of words in six months.
- Many people ask me
if they need to take subject gre or not? It depends on you. Some
universities do ask for subject GRE, and of course you need to take it
if you are going to apply for those universities. But it is entirely
optional, you can get into top universities without subject gre. The
chances of increasing the admission possibility is there, but not
great, unless you are going for a PhD. So take it for the kicks if you
want, or if you have a specific university in mind. Otherwise it is
fine not to take it.
- Try to avoid writing GRE again and again. Do it once, and do it
well. Unless you get a too low score by your standards, your good
academic records should take care of the rest. I know some people
having scored less than 1350 and studying in top universities :-).

Toefl (Test Of English as Foreign Language) is very similar, but comes
with the added advantage of not being competitive: you have to get a
minimum score to prove that you are fluent in English, and you are
done. It does not matter if you get a full marks or passing marks -
both prove the same thing.

BIGGEST POINT TO REMEMBER: Gre
and Toelf are only parts of your application, they are not the complete
application: Do not be discouraged if gre does not go well - you have
tons of other ways to prove your excellence. Good score helps, but it
is not all. Especially if you aiming for a PhD, it is a very minor
thing - other factors are far more important than one test score.

Preperation? Use Barron's book for GRE, and again Barron's for TOEFL.
Princeton review is also another good guide for GRE. These should be
enough, don't get bogged down by too many sources.

Timeline? Write GRE one year before you intend to leave for US.
i.e., if you want to go to MS in Aug 2010, write it at about Sep 2009.
That means you can start preparing sometime around Sep 2008. Having one
year preparation time is good, and required for many people, especially
for verbal section.