How long did you study for the GRE? « Economics Job Market Rumors

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Thread: 46 Goods vs 35 No Goods

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How long did you study for the GRE?

Economist
d2a8

Can’t tell if trolling

FYI - I'm at a HRM and I was talking to one of the seniors who is always on the admissions committee. They said that all they look at is the verbal score, which surprised us all but is apparently true. They think GRE quantitative is such a terrible signal of math skills compared to transcripts that they don't bother.
Of course, I remain skeptical that if you had a super low quant score they wouldn't think twice about admitting you, but I took away that it's not worth sweating say, 165 vs 170, on quant *and* that you shouldn't blow off verbal.

I think this may warrant a separate thread...

1 year ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
b2cd

bump

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
075a

I studied 1/2 days and got 167Q. I wish I failed and never joined a PhD

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
f930

Alright, I've been a paid tutor for GRE exams for a wide spectrum of students, over 20+ clients in total. Let me give my honest suggestion:
For a realistic econ applicant, any more than 20 hours spent on the GRE is a mistake, unless you've always been extremely poor at test-taking and need that preparation for the quant section.
On the other hand, any less than 3 hours is probably a mistake too, unless you are extremely experienced/talented at test-taking and already know the coverage of the verbal/writing section. These two sections are mostly irrelevant, but still worth investing 3 hours in familiarizing the structure, for a likely substantial improvement in score.
Myself: I took the GRE 1 time without prep, got 169/167/4.0, got into grad school. Then decided to take it again when I was looking for GRE tutor jobs (they pay a lot). Before the second test I decided to spend 3 hours looking into the test structure, especially the writing section, and fixing some holes in my understanding. And quickly memorizing 300 vocabs using a technique for short-term memory (google for how to do that). That was sufficient. Then got 170/169/5.5. If you count the duration of my first test , that's about 5 hours invested for probably the most improvement a typical grad econ student can make on the test, subject to randomness.
Compared to most people I'm definitely experienced in test-taking (comes from a test-focused education system). Econ applicants from US system should probably spend 15-20 hours, more on math than on the other two sections.
But seriously, there's no way an econ applicant should spend more than 20 hours on the GRE. If you're on the right track in terms of applying to grad school - i.e. you're taking rigorous econ courses and working on research assistance projects - there are much better ways to spend your time.

I have probably spent already 150 hours on the GRE and failed twice. And guess what, I will try it again. I consider myself as good as an economist as anyone else trying to go to a top 20. I believe being a good economist is much more about arithmetic and quick math. Btw, you arrogance is repudiating and is the reason why you will fail no matter how good you think you are.

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 2 Jab 1 No Jab !
Economist
9206

2 hours + 2 simulations

I got 170

and what were your scores?

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
9206

I support a lot to people who work hard! I consider myself a hard worker type.

But I believe that you are doing something wrong. Please. Try to learn from your mistakes. Have mistakes is ok. My best advice is to run simulations and see where do you have more issues. And put effort to that part.

Best luck! This advice will be useful for first year PhD sequence!

Alright, I've been a paid tutor for GRE exams for a wide spectrum of students, over 20+ clients in total. Let me give my honest suggestion:
For a realistic econ applicant, any more than 20 hours spent on the GRE is a mistake, unless you've always been extremely poor at test-taking and need that preparation for the quant section.
On the other hand, any less than 3 hours is probably a mistake too, unless you are extremely experienced/talented at test-taking and already know the coverage of the verbal/writing section. These two sections are mostly irrelevant, but still worth investing 3 hours in familiarizing the structure, for a likely substantial improvement in score.
Myself: I took the GRE 1 time without prep, got 169/167/4.0, got into grad school. Then decided to take it again when I was looking for GRE tutor jobs (they pay a lot). Before the second test I decided to spend 3 hours looking into the test structure, especially the writing section, and fixing some holes in my understanding. And quickly memorizing 300 vocabs using a technique for short-term memory (google for how to do that). That was sufficient. Then got 170/169/5.5. If you count the duration of my first test , that's about 5 hours invested for probably the most improvement a typical grad econ student can make on the test, subject to randomness.
Compared to most people I'm definitely experienced in test-taking (comes from a test-focused education system). Econ applicants from US system should probably spend 15-20 hours, more on math than on the other two sections.
But seriously, there's no way an econ applicant should spend more than 20 hours on the GRE. If you're on the right track in terms of applying to grad school - i.e. you're taking rigorous econ courses and working on research assistance projects - there are much better ways to spend your time.

I have probably spent already 150 hours on the GRE and failed twice. And guess what, I will try it again. I consider myself as good as an economist as anyone else trying to go to a top 20. I believe being a good economist is much more about arithmetic and quick math. Btw, you arrogance is repudiating and is the reason why you will fail no matter how good you think you are.

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
5499

I studied for 1 nanosecond and got 170.

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 2 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
4030

Study 1 day for the quant. If you can’t get a 167 or higher after one day of studying, you shouldn’t be pursuing an Econ PhD

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 1 Jab 3 No Jab !
Economist
b850

Study 1 day for the quant. If you can’t get a 167 or higher after one day of studying, you shouldn’t be pursuing an Econ PhD

I know someone who studies nonparametric sieve estimators theoretically who got a 165

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 4 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
b850

You just don't need to be very good at arithmetic to be good at proof based math

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 5 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
95fd

You just don't need to be very good at arithmetic to be good at proof based math

Exactly

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
2149

I spent around 20 hours spread over the week before the exam. I glanced through the math 5lb book thingy and did practice exams. Got a 169Q 165V 5.5 writing.

For the verbal parts, a lot of it was similar to what I learnt when studying for the SATs. My writing section was to write as long as possible in pompous language.

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 1 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
b558

A week (effective time might be 20 hours at most). 160V+170Q+4.0. It's not an impressive score for top schools. But I've heard they pay less attention to int'l students' verbal and AW. So I decided to leave it at that.

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
9206

That topic is easy to handle if you are a slow learned.

Study 1 day for the quant. If you can’t get a 167 or higher after one day of studying, you shouldn’t be pursuing an Econ PhD

I know someone who studies nonparametric sieve estimators theoretically who got a 165

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
9eb1

Alright, I've been a paid tutor for GRE exams for a wide spectrum of students, over 20+ clients in total. Let me give my honest suggestion:
For a realistic econ applicant, any more than 20 hours spent on the GRE is a mistake, unless you've always been extremely poor at test-taking and need that preparation for the quant section.
On the other hand, any less than 3 hours is probably a mistake too, unless you are extremely experienced/talented at test-taking and already know the coverage of the verbal/writing section. These two sections are mostly irrelevant, but still worth investing 3 hours in familiarizing the structure, for a likely substantial improvement in score.
Myself: I took the GRE 1 time without prep, got 169/167/4.0, got into grad school. Then decided to take it again when I was looking for GRE tutor jobs (they pay a lot). Before the second test I decided to spend 3 hours looking into the test structure, especially the writing section, and fixing some holes in my understanding. And quickly memorizing 300 vocabs using a technique for short-term memory (google for how to do that). That was sufficient. Then got 170/169/5.5. If you count the duration of my first test , that's about 5 hours invested for probably the most improvement a typical grad econ student can make on the test, subject to randomness.
Compared to most people I'm definitely experienced in test-taking (comes from a test-focused education system). Econ applicants from US system should probably spend 15-20 hours, more on math than on the other two sections.
But seriously, there's no way an econ applicant should spend more than 20 hours on the GRE. If you're on the right track in terms of applying to grad school - i.e. you're taking rigorous econ courses and working on research assistance projects - there are much better ways to spend your time.

I have probably spent already 150 hours on the GRE and failed twice. And guess what, I will try it again. I consider myself as good as an economist as anyone else trying to go to a top 20. I believe being a good economist is much more about arithmetic and quick math. Btw, you arrogance is repudiating and is the reason why you will fail no matter how good you think you are.

"you arrogance is repudiating" makes no sense. gotta brush up on that vocab bro.

3 weeks ago # QUOTE 2 Jab 1 No Jab !
Economist
8cd5

Went in blind and got 167 V, 170 Q, and 5.0 AW

2 weeks ago # QUOTE 1 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
2b18

I took it 3 times - first time without studying, 2nd time with studying but knew from the practice tests that I'd gotten a draw at the low end of my distribution, 3rd time got 170/170.

Idk if it matters so much but I did land at an HRM. At the time seemed worth expending the time & money since it was the last part of the application I had control over, and I was trying to make up for less-than-steller undergrad grades.

2 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
2b81

I studied about 35 hours total. Bout an hour a day for a month. Got a 166q, 165v, 5.0 aw.

2 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Economist
1cfa

Not a native speaker:
Did not study for quant at all (probably not the best idea in hindsight), ca. 30 hours for the rest, got Verbal 166, Quant 167 and AQA 6.0.

2 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !
Karl
Rep: -20

Not a native speaker:
Did not study for quant at all (probably not the best idea in hindsight), ca. 30 hours for the rest, got Verbal 166, Quant 167 and AQA 6.0.

6.0? Wow. How did you do that? Did you just figure out how to game the algorithm?

Or just an eloquent writer?

2 weeks ago # QUOTE 0 Jab 0 No Jab !

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