Expert: Jay Cutts - 7/22/2009

Question
I received my Bachelors degree in Speech -Language Pathology sixteen years ago with a 2.56 GPA.  I have 2 years experience working in schools as a Speech-Lang. Path Assistant. My employer offered to pay my salary and schooling if I get my masters.  I had one month to prepare for the GRE my total score was only 800, 320 quantitative and 490 verbal. Do I have any chance of getting in to a state University with those scores?  Will my work experience counter the low scores? I have excellent letters of recommendations from my supervising Speech -Language Pathologist and the Education agency I work for, who has contacted the University to waive application deadlines so if I qualify I can start this August.  What are my chances of being accepted??

Answer
Hi, Jamie.

Your chances are a little borderline as things stand now.  You may find a school that will accept the 490 Verbal score if they don't care about the math score.

Since you asked for some feedback, honestly there are some other areas of concern.  Your GPA is lower than many schools might accept.  You got your degree 16 years ago but only have two years experience in the field. They may wonder why you haven't been more involved in the field.

On the positive side, there are definitely things you can do about the above issues to address their concerns.  Whether you will be able to do those things in time to start school this year is up in the air.

If the GRE scores are the main obstacle, you may be able to bring those up in a month or two if the school can give you that much leeway to try again.  If they can only give you a month, that might be pushing it but if you have a lot of time you can put it on it, you may be able to make enough improvement.  Two months would be better.

If your GRE scores are too far away from what they are looking for you for them to give you a second chance at it, you may need more like 5 or 6 months, but that should be enough for  you to give them strong scores.

I do work with people on the GRE.  There are many hidden patterns to the test and many strategies that you can learn to improve your score.  I've had people make 200 points progress in a couple months on the math alone.  If you need to do something quickly on this, do feel free to contact me directly.

You can read more about my GRE tutorials on:

http://www.cuttsreviews.com

My direct contact info is there as well.

I hope that helps.  Good luck.

Jay Cutts