Graduate Record Examination and an Admittedly Peculiar Path

The length of your post is interesting.  Are you trying to convince us or yourself of your decision?

I'm worried that you're thinking a bit "in the box" too much.  Why not take a few years off med school and get your PhD here?  You might not need go through the whole GRE thing.  Are there any labs here that you want to be a part of?  You could take time off and go to the NIH and maybe do the same thing.

There is a huge need (and desire) for M.D. researchers at academic centers (i.e. those who want to and can bring in grant funding) as well as a desperate desire for "translational" research.  Do you plan on working in academia or industry?

I took the GRE a couple years back when I finished undergrad & did the first round of applications.  Honestly, the thing is not that difficult.  The writing section is very easy, and the math doesn't really go beyond high school geometry/basic trig (because of all of the liberal arts folks - like me - who didn't really do any math in college).  I studied for just a couple of days & did pretty well.  What I would recommend is tracking down a practice test or two, and seeing what parts stump you.  Then pick up a study book & review those.  But it's really not too much of a thing to worry about.

Number2 offers online prep and it's free. Also get some GRE books.

If I weren't so lazy, I'd probably dedicate more time to the GRE, but I think I've learned all I can out of the educational system. General GRE seems alright from the prep I've done, just know the words.

Since you're looking for something scientific I would assume you'd also need one of those GRE Subject tests, which are generally harder than the General GRE.

Good luck.

BTW: Someone I know prepped and passed the GRE in 10 days. That's an amazing feat. I'd probably spend a lot more time prepping though, about a month or more.

I'm a current PhD student doing research in neuroscience, so I decided to share my experience on the basis that it seems rather relevant. I spent a month studying for the GRE several hours per day. I didn't take a class, just purchased the Princeton Review book, which came with a CD. I went through the whole thing in about 2-3 weeks, leaving myself some time to take the two practice tests allotted by EDS. When reviewing vocabulary, I spent time identifying words I was slightly familiar with but couldn’t exactly define, and words I had no knowledge of, reviewing the latter group more thoroughly. I also focused on the “tricks,” or common types of math questions that people tend to screw up. For the writing, I spent very little time practicing, just reviewing the structure of this section briefly and doing a couple of practice essays. I used one practice test 2 weeks in advance and the other four days ahead of time, in both cases shutting myself in my room to simulate a real test environment. Hope this helps.

The GRE is changing how the test will be consturcted this summer. Go to their web site at www.gre.org and review the information about this. Many students take Kaplan prep courses but they are costly. At the very least, you should buy a prep book at a bookstore and take all of the practice exams in that text.

Good luck to you.

Just take the GRE.  Don't worry about it so much.

You can't study for the vocab words - you are either well read and have a large vocab or you don't.  You can't memorize a dictionary on a short term basis.

Take a couple practice tests, make sure you can ace the math (because you really can control that) and write well.  The vocab is a crap shoot and schools can look at scores individually.  If they see 750 on math, high scores in writing, and maybe a 600 in vocab, you're fine.

Given your interests, I'm curious why you didn't apply to MSTP programs. Maybe you did, but you chose to enroll in a straight MD program. Best of luck with the GRE and your future studies.  

History PhD here, so the math section was almost inconsequential for me.  Still, it was pretty easy and I did decently on it without studying at all.

As far as the writing section goes, I found it extremely easy.  If your writing skills are good, I wouldn't worry about that section, as long as you can type quickly.  My girlfriend and I are about the same writing ability, but I can type 90-100 wpm and she can only type 50-60.  That really showed up in our writing scores.

The verbal section of the exam is constructed horribly.  It's extremely arbitrary and random and you really live or die whether or not you get a few of the early hard questions correct or not, as that will open up harder questions down the line and allow you to increase your score.  I strongly recommend studying vocab for it.  Get a test prep book and goes through their list of most common GRE words.  I used an online flashcard program to study.  Still, as I said it is extremely arbitrary.  I took the test twice and my verbal score jumped 100 points without actually having anymore knowledge than I did the first time.  You may want to wait and take the new test if the verbal section is going to be more logical.

Assuming you can prepare well enough, I'd take the GRE early. The prep industry has got the current graduate exams wired. It will take a few years for them to get the new version of the GRE down. I'm a preparer who probably spent 200-300 hours prepping for the GMAT--I really overdid it and ended up having a relatively bad day come test day.

If you think you're a mental superstar, which you may be, then it may be advantageous to take the new version because all of the folks like me won't be able to game the test as well.

Edit: The GRE website says those taking the new version won't get scores prior to mid-November. Factor that into your calculations.

That's an interesting story.  Comments (in no particular order):

* Your combination of undergrad majors is CRAZY! Color me favorably impressed.

* As others have asked, are you sure that there wouldn't be a way to squeeze in the PhD before you finish school?  From a distance, it's my understanding that the track is generally shortened for medical types (often to the consternation of non-medical types, who are apt to sneer at "quicky" PhDs).

* Have you considered that, with each passing year, PhDs in the academic world play a nastier 'n nastier game of musical chairs when it comes to funding for research?

* Are you ready for all the nonsense (worse every year, it seems) that comes with a tenure-track position?  (See the point just prior to this one.)

* The longer you stay in clinical medicine (say, through an internal medicine residency and a few years of practice), the more currency your MD will have.  Ditch medicine after next year and it will be more of a hood ornament on your CV.

- - -

Anyway, I'd be surprised if you hadn't already considered all of these.  Just thought I'd toss them out there ... best wishes.

Keep in mind on the writing section that length is almost always the most important factor. Obviously you need to make sure you don't have any overt grammatical errors, but if you've ever read anything about the people who grade standardized test essays they really only have time to skim it. I took the GRE twice (the second time purely to boost my writing score)--the first time I wrote a clear, consise, well-thought-out essay and got a 5.0. The second time I simply tried to make the damn thing as long as possible. It was a far inferior essay in my opinion but was almost twice as long as the one I had written before due to all of the fluff I put in...and I got a 5.5.

Hey,

Check out the PowerPrep software available directly from the GRE website. They offer a practice test or two, using real test questions. No, really, at least a couple of the questions on that test were on my actual GRE. It is also valuable to get a feel for how the questions change as you go along in the test, as the next question is influenced by your performance on the previous one. It can be easy to psyche yourself out when you see an easy question pop up, and this helped me get used to that and not think about it too much. The computer program is the exact same as the one on the real test, so you will be familiar with it. Also, they have a list, somewhere on that site, of every essay question that they have that they could ask. It is pretty long, but will give you an idea of how the questions are shaped in general.

One of my essays on the test was to critique an argument made in a made up essay. The argument was basically that in 1910 there were 8 species of some rodent in Yellowstone park, and now in 1995 there are only 3 species of that rodent, so therefore environmental pollution is contributing greatly to global warming.  I'm pretty sure I could have written forever about that one.

Since I am going to be taking the GRE also I just wanted to thank all those who commented and shared their experiences. This thread has shed some light on the subject and I appreciate your insight.

To me I would devote 90% of my time to the verbal section. Granted I took the test in '08, and maybe the test has changed, but I received a 780 on Math and a 580 on verbal. This was with a heavy majority of my time on the verbal section. Get a vocabulary book off Amazon (Kaplan was what I used), and grab a Kaplan study guide. I also used the powerprep software, and I feel it at least gave you a chance to take more practice tests, which helped a ton.

Also, I would hesitate to spend as much time as they suggest. I read a lot of things that said to spend 2 hours a day for 4-6 weeks. I was a slightly above average college student, and I would say that about 10-14 hours total is sufficient if done properly.

Why are you going to grad school? You have a medical degree. Can't you just apply to a lab for a postdoc. You'll learn everything you need as a grad student or a postdoc, but by skipping grad school, you'll cut 4-5 years off your path to getting a job. If I had an MD (instead of my PhD), that's what I'd do.

Hi, interesting post.

1. Agree with the earliest commentator that you have obviously given this a lot of thought already but have to wonder if you might be having some reservations.

2. As a working clinician, I would respectively point out that from a practical standpoint the MD you are getting is as you noted just for the letters. Without a residency, there is little that you can do and frankly little that you actually know about the actual practice of medicine. By the time you are done with M4 year, you've seen some stuff and maybe helped take care of a bunch sick people, but really don't have a clue on how the diagnostic and treatment decisions were made and you never had the final responsibility of deciding a plan and making a decisive call on what to do and what to order. Don't take this too harshly, but your last post mentions money - so I'll call it - you want to be paid like a busy clinician but don't want to work like one.

The worst clinicians are those who are really lab experts and who because they are in a clinical department (e.g. internal medicine) and haven't been able to construct a career devoid of clinical care, end up doing a month or so of clinical duty each year. They don't like it and don't have their hearts in it. They make the minimal number of ward rounds and often don't see their patients for two or three days - they are totally dependent on having a good senior resident cover their interns. As a medical student, resident and now attending this is seen all of the time, and the care they render is spotty - sometimes the patient has a condition they are quite keen about it because it dovetails into their research and they get phenomenal care; othertimes, with the usual "routine" cancer, cirrhosis, pancreatitis, COPD, diabetes, HTN, cardiovascular disease, they let the interns and residents flail away.

3. In the lab, you have tremendous power and leeway in who to set up your research. You can fine tune your hypotheses and create a circumstance where there is only one or a few possible variables. In the real clinical human medical world, that is rarely possible. One of the frustrations basic scientists have when pressed into a "translational" world is that they don't realize how messy real medicine is - it is a patch work of evidence based methods and treatments (all p-values, ROC curves, randomized controlled double blind trials), empirical methods (legacy observations dating back literally hundreds of years), and guesswork (if it works, keep doing it).

4. If you always knew that you weren't going to be primarily or even secondarily a clinician, have to agree with the earlier post that perhaps a medical scientist training (MSTP) option might be better suited but at this point, since you are certain about a non-clinical future, there is little point of doing the three step USMLE process if you don't plan on practicing medicine. To do part III, you have to be in an internship year...USMLE 1 and 2 are of use mostly to get a license and to help you apply for residency.

Good luck but think over your options - going back to take the Boards AFTER many years out is harder than doing the GREs.

first, congrats on your decision to walk away from the health profession.  it's a brave choice, and takes some guts.  i myself recently left medical school after 1.5 years and sympathize with your struggle.  though i, too, have a love for protein structure and function -- i decided to pursue something in the field of education instead.

i have taken the MCAT twice.  first time i scored in the 87th percentile.  didnt go straight to med, instead did a masters.  when it came time to apply to med, i had to retake my MCAT given my score had expired.  second go around i scored much better.  i bring this up because im not sure how great of a test taker you are and what your MCATs were, but you can use this info to compare against when considering my advice.

im comparison to the MCAT, the GRE is a joke.  it's the easiest standardized test i have taken since high school (and i have taken the MCAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT), and would put it on par with an "honors" SAT if one existed.  i prepared for 4 days for the GRE and did very well (averaged 730s in every section).  it took me a few days to go back and refresh on some principles of mathematics that i had not considered since high scool geometry and trig.  my vocab was excellent given my biomedical background and strong understanding of latin and greek roots.  perhaps the most useful thing i did was take a few practice tests simply to acclimate to the timing, style, and format of the test.  unless you have major issues with standardized tests, worrying about the GRE is a complete waste of time.

as for test prep, i recommend the REA book, simply because i have intimate experience with kaplan and princeton review and feel like most of their stuff is garbage.  the test evolves painfully slow, so dont worry about going onto amazon and getting a prep book from an earlier year like 2009 or 2010.

next, take a few non-ETS practice tests.  ETS is the company that makes the GRE.  i believe they provide one authentic GRE test for you to practice with.  SAVE THAT ONE.  the biggest strike against the test prep companies is their practice materials are poorly written and do not reflect the nature of the actual test.

once you have you bearings from brushing up on math and verbal basics, and have found your rythym on some impostor practice exams, then take the authentic GRE practice test provided by ETS.  if you are happy with your score, proceed on and take the test ASAP.  if not, rinse and repeat.

one last parting thought: DO NOT TAKE THE REVISED GRE.  we dont know whats on it, how hard it is, and essentially how to prep for it.  hurry up and take the "old GRE" before it is no longer available (august?).

1) Princeton Review practice tests accurately reflected my actual score, so that's a good measuring stick

2) Based on some of the sample questions they were considering for the new test format from when I took it back in 2006 ... my advice is to take the test before the makeover (unless it's already received one since then, in which case I don't know one way or the other). The new questions looked significantly more difficult (for example, having to fill out a matrix of possible answers correctly to get one question correct instead of your simple, pick-one-right-answer multiple choice).

i took this thing 3 times, 4 if you count the first where my answers were off by 1.  in my not-so-humble opinion, it's a glorified sat;  that said, they say it correlates well to performance in grad school.

i agree mostly with what's been said about the math.  it's very practical;  you can learn some principles and practice to improve your score. 

as for the verbal, don't get bogged down in memorising a huge list of words.  as you're a med student, i'm sure you can relate to learning prefixes, roots and suffixes, and using the combination to make an educated guess at the meanings of words you don't know.  this was certainly very useful for me in vet school.

the writing - it seemed to me that the idea is to write a coherent, logical argument, with various points and supporting text for those points.  i don't think you have to write pulitzer-quality work, just a logical argument.

for what it's worth, i scored reasonably well all three times, with a slight improvement the third time.  my scores were more than competitive for vet school.

do well, whatever you choose.

Just make sure you don't burn out and have a pretty solid plan before you start another program.  I just went back to school 6 years after graduating.  It may have been a little too long of a break, but I'm 100% confident in the path I'm taking now. 

It seems you've come too far (and spent a lot of money) to not finish your 4th year.  Taking time off to do a PhD like some mentioned above seems like a good option, especially since you could bang it out in a few years.  One thing to keep in mind if you want to end up as faculty at Michigan, is for some grants (especially for postdocs), the NIH and other organizations like to see people who have been trained at multiple institutions.  It probably would help to learn from experts all over the country/world, and you a change of scenery may help your mental state.

I worked in a biochem lab for 8 years, contemplated a PhD, but discovered that the further you get then less fun it was (more grant and paper writing, less bench work). And it was boring. I like problem solving, but needed more immediate gratification than waiting months or years for experiments to work themselves out. I then went to med school at age 33.

If you've got a passion for research, and can't imagine doing anything else, then go for it. But consider giving a residency in neurology or pathology a try. Medicine gets more and more fun/satisfying the further you go. It's too early to judge it by your med school experience - you don't know anything and the attendings/ nurses/ patients don't take you seriously. Residency is where you learn "real" medicine. It's 3-4 tough years, but you'll learn so much and be able to ask better clinical questions.

If nothing else you can moonlight as a MD to make money to supplement the meager grad school paycheck, like one of my friends did.

I agree that the GRE is easy (no offense anyone).

And no decision you make is ever really final. You can always change your mind latter on and do something else. But you'll have more options if you do a residency.

As suggested above, studing vocabulary is a good idea, no matter how well read you are.  It's likely there will be some words most people have not seen -- minimizing the points lost on those words is very helpful in maximizing your verbal score.  I'll offer the same suggestion that I give to anyone who is taking the GRE: buy Norman Lewis' Word Power Made Easy and spend a lot of time with it.  The value is learning the etymology of words, so you have a decent shot at figuring out what a word means if you haven't seen it before.  Anyway, it worked for me, well enough for a 97% percentile on the verbal section.

Wow...you're a douche

How can the current GRE be decades-old when it's a computer-based test that gets harder or easier depending on whether you're answering correctly?