Hidden above Starbucks in the Commons is a quaint little office dedicated to getting students into graduate school. Kaplan, a good place for any student considering a grad program to learn more about the tests they need to take in order to get into the school they want.
Kaplan, a nationally known test prep and admissions center, focuses on helping to prepare students for standardized tests, such as the SAT, GRE, the GMAT for business school, the LSAT for law school, and the MCAT for medical school, just to name a few.
With a local testing facility on campus, the Kaplan office allows students to take advantage of the opportunity to begin thinking about and, more importantly, prepare for graduate school early, an act that could not only result in admission to a top choice school, but also a better opportunity for financial aid to go there.
Carl Neussle, the center manager for UB's Kaplan office recommends that the first thing students thinking about graduate school should do is extensively research the institution, paying special attention to the programs they offer for Master's or professional degrees.
"Don't follow Barron's or Peterson's guides," he said while speaking to members of the Communication Undergraduate Student Association at a graduate school seminar held in the Union last week. "Call the school, talk to the professors, find out exactly what they're looking for."
Many schools, while substantially considering test scores and GPAs, look at the amount of job experience applicants have, a characteristic of many business institutions and MBA programs. In addition, many programs want applicants to take specialized GRE exams, which concentrate on specific areas of study, as opposed to the general GRE, which oftentimes covers a variety of graduate school programs anywhere from education to computer programming.
Neussle then recommended students think about preparing themselves for the tests, which many times, along with an applicant's GPA is what will determine the school's first round of cuts. Neussle emphasized the importance of leaving enough breathing room between completing the exam and applying to graduate school, so students who performed poorly would have a chance to take the exam again.
"A gut rule of thumb is take the test in the year preceding the year you want to apply for graduate school," he said.
Additionally, Neussle noted that unlike admissions to undergraduate programs that "cherry pick" top SAT and ACT scores no matter how many times the tests are taken, many upper-level degree programs look at how many times candidates took the exam and considers all the scores, focusing in on whether or not they have improved.
That's not to say that it's bad for an applicant to take an entrance exam more than once.
"I took it twice, and I'm here," said Sarah Whitehead, a graduate student in communication who shared her experiences and advice with the CUSA group.
As for the tests themselves, like the SAT exam taken in high school, they are broken into different sections, with a different amount of points and a specific amount of time available for each section.
Kaplan officials said students should not be misled by the comparison to the SAT, however. Each test is, in some way, shape, or form drastically different from the SAT. Moreover, admissions tests needed to apply to different programs can be drastically different from each other as well.
For example, the format for the GMAT, which contains verbal and math sections is different from the LSAT, which consists of Logical Reasoning I, Logical Reasoning II, logic games, reading comprehension, an experimental section, and a writing sample.
Also, the GRE, which is taken by a variety of majors for grad school, is adaptive, meaning that as the test taker answers each question correctly, the computer program that is used to administer the exam feeds participants harder questions. Furthermore, participants must answer each question in order to move on to the next question, and going back to change a previous answer is not an option.
Students who want more information are encouraged to talk with a Kaplan representative, even if they are not planning in enrolling in Kaplan prep courses, which many times are offered right on North Campus.
Additionally, the center offers free practice exams as well as workshops that will give future grad students a solid place to start.
Hints like this are very valuable to the test taker, making it is necessary for students thinking about graduate school to prepare early and get help with studying and admissions preparations. Students applying to graduate school know the entire process can be overwhelming, especially in the beginning.
Madeline Placencia, a senior psychology and communication major, hopes to attend graduate school somewhere in New York City after taking a semester or two off.
"I think the whole process is just crazy," she said.
