Don’t let a temporary setback keep you from your own Test Day success story.
Is retaking the GRE on your list for 2017? This story is a must-read if you’re looking for a boost of confidence.
Arguably, my favorite GRE success story is “Heather” (not her actual name). Like a sizable portion of students who come to us, Heather had already taken the GRE after preparing on her own, and her scores were not high enough. She was a senior in college with a hefty course load and a time-consuming job in her field that required a lot of travel.
Heather’s success story
Right from the start of her Kaplan GRE course, Heather and I were in frequent email contact, figuring out how she should structure her study time so she could take her test a couple weeks after the end of a twice a week class. She was a diligent, goal-oriented student.
Her GRE Test Day came, and she fell short of the scores she needed to be considered for the grad program she wanted. Her math score was a little over what she needed, but her verbal score was significantly below an acceptable level.
What now?
How do you turn a temporary setback into a success story? This is the point where too many potential graduate students passively accept their inadequate score as fate, feeling powerless over what seems like an insurmountable obstacle.
“I’m over this test,” she wrote to me. I replied, “You don’t strike me as someone who just gives up. Give yourself a day to stew, and then let’s get practical.” We arranged for a good time to talk and regroup.
Heather wrote back that she’d calmed down after a run and a talk with her parents. She also gained perspective from talking to a fellow student who was a year ahead of her and who took the GRE four times until she got a barely adequate score—and now she’s in grad school.
The GRE prep plan
We worked together to formulate a specific set of strategies and a study schedule. Heather repeated some class sessions, partly to see if she could get some new insights and partly just to keep up her studies. She committed to learning as many of the top 500 vocabulary words as possible (she got all but about 30 of them). She practiced eliminating wrong answer choices to improve her chances of getting right answers with strategic guessing.
To hone her reading comprehension skills, we came up with the idea of reading articles from the following well-written publications:
The Economist
The New Yorker
Financial Times
Terry Teachout
The idea was to read challenging writing quickly, actively, and critically.
She stayed in touch, reporting on what she was working on. You can do something similar with a friend or family member; the point is to have someone—a “coach”—who’ll keep encouraging you to stick with your work and help you get past the times when you feel stuck or frustrated.
Test Day results
GRE Test Day #3 arrived, and I have to admit, I was nervous for Heather. The phone rang late that day with Heather’s number on the caller ID. She did it! She maintained her math score and improved her verbal score so significantly that she could have her applications considered.
Today, Heather is finished with her doctorate in Physical Therapy, and she’s been a practicing physical therapist for several years! She checks in periodically to let me know how things are going. Hearing from her always makes my day, and I’m glad to be able to share her story with you. My hope is that you can take a cue from the Heather’s GRE success story of persistence and focus in order to similarly drive yourself towards Test Day victory.
Ready to write your own GRE success story? Start the first chapter of your prep with a free practice test and review.
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