I think misspacey is right - you'd need a very strong Masters grade to make up for a 2:2. It would also have to be super relevant to the PhD you want to take. A research component would also help.

You don't know your grade yet, though. If you get a borderline 2:2 back, you can always challenge the grade.

That's not true - letters of reference are usually critical to the success or otherwise of an application.

I agree - if he's not wholeheartedly behind you, I wouldn't risk using him as a referee. How about your BSc project supervisor? Any tutors you know well and have done some really good assignments for?

Owned I admit I didn't read your post properly.

I guess this is why scientists are haemorrhaging out into industry. It's a real shame, and there doesn't seem to be too much drive to change the status quo currently.

I was also under the impression that Brits and Europeans are flocking across the Atlantic because academics can get tenure earlier there. I suppose the grass is always greener indeed.

" They all say that with a family they prefer the British system where it is much easier to get a permanent, secure job."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oh, stop it; my sides are hurting. Don't you know any actual UK academics?

I certainly know a prof in my current department who has moved universities and taken her whole lab with her, PhD students and all. I assume if they had trouble with a change of location due to family commitments or whatever, the other university would have been required to make some provision to keep them on in some way, shape or form.

How come you haven't discussed this with your supervisor? Do you not have a good relationship?

And that's what worries me.

The grade 4 and 5 sample essays seem generally okay, maybe a bit off target sometimes, maybe a bit waffly.

The grade 6 essays are uniformly awful.

They are florid to the point of unreadability, they utilise complicated sentence structure and irrelevant examples to obfuscate the points they are trying to put across, or the fact that they do not, in fact, have a point. They generally violate all six of Orwell's five rules of writing. They almost all name-drop Socrates or Benjamin Franklin when more popularly familiar examples would do.

Is this really what I'm trying to aim for? The idea depresses me. Am I aiming to write a 4 or a 5 because I think clarity and precision count? Or am I aiming higher than 6 standard? If anyone knows how these things are marked, any information would be helpful.

Hi, I've read some of the previous threads on the GRE, but I don't think my query has been answered yet. If it has, sorry to waste your time and a link to the relevant thread would be nice.

I'm a UK student, as you may have guessed from the thread title, with an application in progress at a US university. The only thing missing is my GRE score, and I'll be taking the general test on Friday.

I'm a bit nervous, especially since it's a long time since I've done this sort of test (the closest was probably the Cognitive Battery Test that was briefly wheeled out when I was about twelve), and in the UK we aren't really schooled to this sort of test. I'm preparing to brush up on what looks like A* grade GCSE maths (judging by the sample questions and provided preparation booklet), having a read of the vocabulary lists (no worries; my English is reasonably strong) and have a read of the sample essays.