and you, of tender years, can't know the fears that your elders grew by

by mg at 11:41 AM on December 08, 2002

I still haven't gotten back the official results back for my GREs, but if you take the computerized version of the test, like I did, you get an immediate score on the multiple-choice questions. Even though they don’t matter at all, I'm actually more curious to see how I did on the essay section. The GRE books I looked at say, regardless of putting together a reasonable argument, the one thing that seems to really guarantee success is length.

And if there is one thing I’ve got going for me, it’s length (if you know what I mean).

I really pride myself on being able to churn out pointless drivel, and lots of it, pretty quickly. I do it here on a regular basis. So, I can't wait to see what a bunch of overworked and underpaid grad students think of the dissertation I was able to churn out for the GRE's to essay sections.

The only thing that really concerned me was getting a good score on the multiple-choice sections, and I did that. I decided to take the GREs, even though the school I'm applying to doesn't require them, because they have a special tuition assistance program; if you had over a 3.5 undergraduate GPA (in my case, a big “nope”) or scored over a 1200 on the GREs, you get $100 off every credit you take. Over the course of the program, I’d save nearly $4,000, or rather, not have to pay that money back to the nice Stafford Federal Loan people when I finally do graduate.

I had nothing to lose by taking the test, and not losing more money to gain by taking it, so I did. The $150 they charge you for the honor of letting them underpay some teaching assistants to and electronically grade your exam, and the day and a half of stress between when I decided to take it, signed up to take it, and I actually took the damn thing, was definitely worth the potential return on investment.

All I needed to do was score a 1200, and I did. So, in that regard, it was a complete success. But being the mopey perfectionist sort that I am, I still choose to get upset about it, because I didn't do nearly well as I'd hoped.

Another reason for taking the GRE was to supplement my college grades. As smart as you all might think me, and as smart as I modestly claim to be, I wasn’t the best of students. My low college GPA is due entirely to the one rotten semester right before I quit school for a year. After scoring a whopping 0.9 average (a D- average) over that semester, I decided maybe I didn't really want to be in college. Unfortunately, that realization came a bit too late.

However, discounting that one miserable semester, my GPA was pretty. I never managed to make the Dean's list, but I did just miss it (a couple times) by only a couple hundredths of a point. One of those times I'd been doing A work all semester and just plain forgot to show up for one of my final exams. So, maybe it isn't that I was a bad student so much as a self-destructive idiot.

At any rate, the grad program has a minimum requirement for undergraduate GPA that I just barely miss. I figured if I did well enough on the GRE and sent a letter (remember my awesome writing abilities) explaining things, they’d let me around that requirement. Rules are made to be broken, and if anyone deserves a break, it’s me.

Saturday morning there was an open house at the college. They usually have 15 people show up; this morning there were more than 40. I've got no other plan on how to spend the next two years of my life, and the thought of having to look for full time work in this market just makes me so very sad. So, I sat through the entire presentation shitting myself with worry that with all the competition, and having sent in my application so late, that there is no way I'm getting in.

For a moment, lets disregard the fact I haven’t another damn option available. As I was looking around the room I noticed something that makes me want to get in even more; of the 40+ people there for the open house, only 5 (including myself) were male (and I'm pretty sure two of those were gay).

I suppose this was to be suspected, being that I'm applying to an Information and Library Science Masters Program. Library screams “females here” more than a wastebasket full of used tampons, even to someone as sexually enlightened as me, but I really didn't expect this favorable a ratio. Sure, a number of them were older, and there were a couple of (really) butch dykes, but the majority were around my age and really hot. Not even hot in that marmy sort of way you expect librarians to be (black rimmed glasses and pleated skirts are SO hot), but just outright hot, even when planted into the uberhot general NYC population.

I wanted in before, but if there is a ten to one ration of hot chicks to straight guys, I'd be willing to sit through Pluto Nash if it meant I could situation myself in that kind of babelicious environment.

I don't want to talk too much more about this, because I don't want to jinx anything. But I don't really have much else to scribe about, I thought I'd let you know. I hope to find out before Christmas, but it may not be until the beginning of January. Classes would start January 16, so if you don't hear anything by then, don't bother asking since it means I didn't get in. But, if I do get accepted, you better believe I'll be screaming for joy from the highest mountaintops and stocking up on prophylactics.