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GRE Search Service

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 4:34 am
by logaritym
What's the point of it?
I regularly receive e-mails from various US universities and most of the offers seem to be sub-par (North-Easters University, MFE Berkeley - 1y, etc.). Is this some kind of promotional service for not-so-good programs, looking for new students?
Greetings!

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 9:16 am
by alex
Yes, they are advertisements for programs, and they are intended to reach people interested in attending the kind of program they're advertising. Do you really not understand advertising, or are you asking just to point out that you think they're beneath you?

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 9:32 am
by logaritym
Well, I expected something different... Maybe more personal attitude or something - everything I receive are advertisments from some not so popular universities or programs. I don't think they're beneath me or that I should receive something more special, I'm sorry if it sounded like that. I just hoped that I should receive information about specific positions, something I could count on, not only "Hi! We are ALPHA-BETA University, check our programs. Greetings!".

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 9:33 am
by trevaskis
I believe that the advertisements you get are based on your scores.

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 9:54 am
by alex
sorry, grumpy this morning.

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:50 am
by chsguitarist
If they target ads based on score (there is a line in one of my ads that says "based on your score") we could use the information about who has been targeted by which schools to figure out our scores early. I say this because I took the test in november, and I have been getting solicitations for about a week. A few programs at the school of mines in colorado - I've never heard of them so I guess they target at about the 20th percentile range ;) I think it is more than likely that the advertisements have no idea what our score is, because we haven't recieved them yet, but in the event they aren't bluffing and anyone else is interested, it could be an interesting score estimation technique to see who recieved which solicitations through the GRE Search service. The two I can remember are both university of mines, EE and Mechanical Engineering

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:41 am
by john
The question is, why would upper echelon schools need to send advertisements? Do you really think that Berkelely, Chicago, MIT, Harvard, etc. need any help in finding applicants for their programs?

Of course these advertisements are going to be from lower ranked programs, they are the ones looking for applicants. The big guys don't need the help.

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2010 4:00 pm
by trevaskis
Upper ranked schools do advertise, I put down economics and business as interests of mine and got a letter from Wharton.

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 4:50 pm
by ded8381
Well, here's an interesting bit of info: I originally was scheduled to take the October GRE -- but then rescheduled to the November test. I signed up for the GRE search service and I started receiving "Based on youre good GRE score..." letters after the Oct test. :)

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 10:57 am
by chsguitarist
Got an ad from MIT's supply chain mgmt program last year. Could be that unknown or relatively new programs advertise through that channel. I also got about a billion for computational biology or bioinformatics, even though I'm sure I didn't list that as an interest

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2010 7:42 pm
by Chapel
To answer a question, they are certainly NOT based on your scores. I started getting ads almost immediately after the test before the test was even graded. Additionally, I received an ad from Duke after my first test and that score was not Duke material.

The school that awarded my my Masters sent me information asking, "Have you ever considered a Masters with us?" I responded saying, "If you check your records, you will see that I have considered, applied, attended and graduated graduate school at your university." This was all done through one of their own student email accounts, namely mine. They then thanked me for my reply and looked forward to seeing me at their open house, which I did not attend (on the account that I already have the advertised degree), which they followed up with a "Sorry we missed you" email. So yeah, not even remotely personalized.

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 7:42 am
by le6tan
And, at the end of the day, what is really your question logaritym? It makes no sense to ask such questions in this forum - you can ask ETS regarding such issues ... also I don't think that Berkeley's Master of Financial Engineering is a bad program - they just want to make the program popular, because there is no financial aid for it - but this does not mean that Berkeley will accept mediocre students only because they will pay their tuition and fees. I think the program is as competitive as any other UC Berkeley graduate program.

Re: GRE Search Service

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 8:14 am
by logaritym
le6tan, my real question was whether I should pay attention to the service and expect something from it or just turn it off.
I already found the answers and I guess that even if I called ETS, they shouldn't give me the information I received here.
Thank you for your responses.
Greetings!