GRE Psychology anyone?

[Johanna]

With the benefit of up to 30 credits (including 18 UL) for a mere 130 dollars or so, I am seriously looking into taking GRE psychology. However . . . I would love to know if anyone else has done this and is willing to share experiences (good or bad). Is it even a reasonable goal? :confused:
Thanks . . .

[bluetooth]

What school gives you 30 credits for the GRE?

[SimonTam]

Excelsior will for the right score. They give between 3 and 30 credits for the GRE subject exams depending upon the score.

[Johanna]

Did Excelsior give you a grade with the credits? How did they establish that?
Thanks for the info!

[snazzlefrag]

With the benefit of up to 30 credits (including 18 UL) for a mere 130 dollars or so, I am seriously looking into taking GRE psychology. However . . . I would love to know if anyone else has done this and is willing to share experiences (good or bad). Is it even a reasonable goal? :confused:
Thanks . . .

Financially, it is virtually unbeatable on a credit per dollar basis. However, scoring high enough to earn the maximum 30 credits is not something most people could do with just a week or so of study. I'm sure those who have taken it before will attest to the fact that this is an extremely in-depth examination of ALL the cumulative knowledge you should have acquired if you had taken 30+ credits of courses for a Psychology major.

Finances aside, it might make more sense to study for each required Psychology exam individually rather than spend several months studying for this one exam.

Another potential issue is that your transcript won't list ANY of the individual Psychology subjects covered by the GRE. It will simply list something like:

"GRE...Pass...30 credits."

As part of a second degree or a double major, this might be sufficient. But I suspect that a graduate admissions board would be looking for more specific details about your major than the above generic line on your transcript. For this reason, I personally wouldn't use the GRE to achieve a Psych major in my first degree. However, if I needed to boost my electives, or if I simply need the 30 credits to earn a second degree, then I might consider it.

I'm not trying to pursuade or dissuade you either way. These are just my own thoughts on it. You will obviously need to weigh up the pros and cons and come to your own personal decision based on what is best for YOU.

For $130, you don't really have THAT much to lose if you decide to give it a shot. But, as I said, unless you have already done a great deal of study in the field of Psychology, it would probably require a LOT of prep time.

Please let us know whether you end up taking this exam or not. It will be interesting to see what you decide, and how you do.

Best of luck,
Snazzlefrag

[vickey]

Can anyone share how many credits you can receive from Excelsior for the GRE Psychology exam. How many for a score of 600, 650, 700, etc

[skyfall123]

vickey,

I'm talking off the top of my head, with a +- accuracy of about 20%.
With Excelsior, it's a graduated scale, whereby you start getting credit around the 40% percentile and then for every 5 points you go up you get another 3 credits until you max out when you get close to the 80% percentile. Lower level credit is given first, then Upper Level.

Charter Oak gives you a flat 18 credits at the 40% percentile. A poster recently closed out her entire degree from that one test.

I took the GRE on a whim, without studying and got close to the 40%. If you are interested in this test, I would highly recommend trying.

It's a mix of Abnormal Psych, Developmental Psych and Intro to Psych.

For $135 bucks its worth a try.

[alissaroot]

The GRE is $130. not $135, although they raise fees regularly, so it may be $135 soon. I plan to take this in Oct., so I researched a lot. I can't find the exact scores needed on Excelsior's website, but on other discussion forums the scaled scores needed are close to this:

Raw score -scaled score-percentile-credits at Excelsior

100-102 530 36% 3LL
103-106 540 39% 3LL
107-110 550 43% 6LL
111-113 560 47% 9LL
114-117 570 50% 12LL
118-120 580 54% 12LL
121-124 590 58% 12LL+3UL
125-127 600 62% 12LL+6UL
128-131 610 65% 12LL+9UL
132-135 620 68% 12LL+9UL
136-138 630 72% 12LL+12UL
139-142 640 75% 12LL+15UL
143-145 650 78% 12LL+15UL
146-149 660 81% 12LL+18UL

And I only got 109 on my first practice test, but I figure it'll be worth it if I can at least get 9 credits this way, cause I am so very broke! The bummer is the self-correcting penalty against guessing. If it weren't for that, I could at least get 18 credits out of it I'm sure. There are 215 questions on the test, so you can miss a lot and still get a high score though. Good Luck!