Thanks Soumya,
I appreciate all of your guidance. I’m sorry for the long message and please let me know if I missed anything or if there any additional details you need.
• My background is in Information Technology.
• I have taken the GRE three times and used
Magoosh and
Manhattan Prep/Powerprep all three times. My three official scores on the GRE are :
• 12/17/2014: Verbal Reasoning: 146 Quant: 153
• 01/12/2016: Verbal Reasoning: 149 Quant: 153
• 08/01/2016: Verbal Reasoning: 149 Quant: 154
I think the jump in my Verbal Reasoning from my first attempt to my second was due to my increase in reading for fun.
• The first time I was studying, I used
Magoosh and Powerprep material and was scoring 150s in practice scores. I took the exam 3 days ago and scored a 154 Quant and 149 (Verbal), which is almost the same score I received on Jan 12, 2016 when I took the exam.
• During my preparation over the last two months, I took one
Magoosh test and scored a 159 (Quant) and 150 (verbal). I took one ETS powerprep exam online and scored a 164(Quant) and 154(verbal) and one powerprep exam in the book in which I scored a 160 (Quant) and 152(Verbal). I have also memorized 600 vocab words from
Magoosh. In addition, there were was a sense of familiarity with Power Prep and the test in the book since I had taken them before over 6 months ago in addition, to having solved all of the
Magoosh questions before. However, I realized that although I had seen the questions before, I could not make out what the answer was and had to still solve the question.
• I have not taken any courses, was debating on taking a
Manhattan Prep course. However, after going to a trial class it seemed that it would not be helpful primarily because I had already solved the questions from most of their material and the instructor will not necessarily dive into individual problems that I was having during prep.
• I have not scheduled another GRE exam but can take it anytime. I was told that the best time to take it is when you are seeing the score you want on your practice tests. Also, I think one of my problems on the GRE tends to be that when I get to the exam, I seem to forget everything I have learned.
• My target score is 160 and above in Quant and 160 above in Verbal, which I don't even know if its realistic. As long as I see improvement, I'm willing to put in the effort.
• I plan on applying to Vanderbilt, Washington University, and University of Texas for a masters in finance. I was also considering Financial Mathematics programs from University of Chicago and Berkeley. However, if I cannot even score a 160 on the GRE quant, I shouldn’t even waste my time applying since I have no s hot.
• The current books that I have for the GRE includes all of the 8 Manhattan Individual Strategy Guides, 5LB Manhattan Book of GRE Problems, Official GRE Quantitative Reasoning And Verbal Practice Questions and the GRE The Official Guide to the Revised General Test, Second Edition: Edition 2
In addition, I have two other books that I have never used, the NOVA GRE Math Book and I have ordered the Official Guide for the GMAT Review 12th edition, since I was told it has tough questions that might be helpful on the GRE.
Best Regards
Ali
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