I looked into it, and apparently the GRE is good for five years.
I feel I might want to be in graduate school in fewer than five years and as it is I can't remember having taken a standardized test since Cell Molecular Biology, which I took first semester sophomore year (so four years ago?).
Unfortunately I have learned there is a math portion on this test. I'm not excited about this. I don't feel it will matter, because the test is divided into sections (like the SAT... which I did not take), but it would have been nice to have said, "I haven't used math on a test since I was seventeen."
In one month I will be taking a step towards furthering my education, a step many of my contemporaries took two or three years ago. I've decided to focus more on how I'm getting the process started than how I've decided to schedule my becoming a grown up plan.
One thing I notice, which I feel ought to be troubling, is how not anxious I am for this test.
I remember other people (mostly those bound for law school) buzzing around campus, shivering with dread, and checking stacks of books out of the library with which to build forts they might hide behind (I assume).
I also remember thinking, "thank god I'm not planning on graduate school."
It is possible I've retained my skepticism as to whether or not I'll be attending graduate school, it's likely I'm not aware of how difficult this test might be, and it's almost a certainty I've become entirely apathetic about test-taking (having inoculated myself against test anxiety with four years of Liberal Arts and two spent letting the routine and demands of academia become a distant, warm memory).
I think I had this feeling about the ACT though. I can't remember much about high school. I took a Saturday morning course on ACT prep (which lasted three weeks) through the school, and I'm sure I must have been anxious... I was a nervous person... but even then, I think I had the notion I could strive to cram some extra knowledge into my mind but ultimately decided this was silly.
I kind of feel I might as well just take the test, see what my score is, and accept that this is where I am.
Somehow in my head this felt less like glorifying mediocrity than it seems to read.
Maybe I'll consider brushing up on the math tomorrow morning.
