Tales of a Former Smart Kid

Ok, so funny story.

I went and took the GRE today.

You know that and it's not funny.

I know! You've barely let me start!

Anyway,
 
The test was a little nerve-wracking, but I thought I did decently. At the end of the test they gave me my preliminary scores (which I've been told I shouldn't totally trust as the prelims sometimes come out higher than the official scores). So I got a 165 Verbal and a 152 Quantitative. I didn't know what the range was, so I just wrote down those numbers in my brain and transferred them to my phone as soon as I exited the building. To be fair those numbers might be wrong, too, just because my brain isn't so hot at remembering numbers even for very short moments of time.

So I wrote the numbers on my phone and immediately looked up "What is a good GRE Score?"... and saw that the top of the range was 800.

And I *freaked* out. I mean I didn't think I did great, but that's just terrible! I know that the adviser said the scores weren't insanely important, but he also said I shouldn't bomb it on purpose and 165 out of 800 sure looks like bombing it to me.

I quickly concluded that all of my test-taking abilities had gone down the drain .. or exploded.... or went on a hot air balloon race into the Bermuda Triangle ... I was a disgrace to my kind, my gpa was full of lies, and I no longer deserved the moniker of "smart kid." Mini-identity crisis began to ensue.

So a friend had e-mailed while I was in the test, and asked if I wanted to go to dinner with her. I hadn't eaten much beforehand thus I was starving... and also ready to drown my sorrows in hanging out with a friend and eating vast quantities of food.

(side note- it was really hard for me to find the contacts list on my phone and then I drove really badly because my brain had turned off all of its life-skills functions to re-open my vault labeled, "High School Geometry.")

 I called her to say yes and then I drove to the restaurant and sat in the parking lot, pondering if I was really making the right choice- applying to grad school... pondering if I could even get in.... pondering my own immense hubris. Pondering how I should really stop using words like hubris in my inner monologue, because I wasn't a smart kid anymore.


I sat in the parking lot and thought to myself. "There is no way I did that badly. I mean how could I have gotten so many things wrong and thought that I was right?" And then I remembered that I was taking a "revised" test. They changed the GRE in 2011. Did you know? This test test was different than it used to be in several ways, including letting you have a calculator on screen, letting you review/ change your test answers, and letting you move around on each section of the test at random. I thought, "Maybe when they changed the test they changed the scoring rubric."

It was a thin hope, but like Obi Wan Kenobi to the Rebel Alliance it was my only one.

So I googled "New GRE test scores"

Yep.

I about had a conniption over the wrong scoring range.

The new one is 130-170 in 1-point increments.

165 suddenly looks a heck of a lot better, doesn't it?

Morals of the story: "Smart kids" can be pretty dumb. I have a lot of my identity still wrapped up in being "smart," even though I didn't realize it. And always make sure you are looking at the right scoring range.