Tuition is outrageous and the competition to get admission with good funding is like a blood sport. Your predicament is a helluva thing but at least you acknowledge the fact that the MBA route is self destructive–unlike so many poor wretches in the LDS ranks.

It was only a matter of time before it happened. Education expenses have outpaced inflation for so long that it’s becoming less and less financially feasible to finance graduate school, unless of course one has a full tuition scholarship. That’s standard in the hard sciences, but less so in the humanities.

GMAT takers are rising because even though getting an MBA is a soul sucking (and expensive) endeavor, it does in the end pay itself back, hence it’s feasible to do.

Yes, I am ranting here. All of this talk about graduate studies in religion made me conduct my semi-annual feasibility study in doing some graduate work in religion. I had already decided that full time was just out of the question for me (I have to feed a wife and three kids), but I thought part time might work for me because I have a very flexible work schedule. So I start checking out tuition rates, since there’s no way I would get any help given that I would be a part-time,minimal participant in the university community.

The bottom line is that I simply cannot justify the expense of doing this. At $300-1000 per credit hour it would cost $1800 – $6000 to be a part time student for ONE semester. For $6000 I can buy enough books to keep me busy for years studying biblical topics.

The ultimate irony is that I would probably end up being taught by underfed graduate students, while the vast majority of the cash goes to administration costs.

I found that the practice tests offered by the GRE website and those found in study guides were really helpful in learning the tricks of the test. Also, familiarizing oneself with the computer based test (GRE will send a CD with a few practice tests once you register a test date)will aid on the test day since precious seconds can be saved navigating the program.

The GRE seems to count for precious little in my neck of the woods and nobody mentions it or compares scores (like freshman dorm halls when the alphas stake out their ground). For what it is worth, I took the test twice (once for the MA, once for PhD) and I prepared more the second time around and scored higher in the Verbal and Quantitative but lower in the Analytical Writing.