smmmu

In their admissions FAQ Stanford CS says "While there is no minimum requirement for GRE scores, a strong application would include percentiles in the high 90s for the Ph.D. program and scores in the 90th percentile for the MS program." 810 translates into 84th percentile. That being said, 84th percentile is quite good, particularly on a 'small' test such as the GRE CS. It may not kill your chances even at a place like Stanford if the rest of your application is good enough (as quant_liz_lemon has already pointed out, the GRE alone won't get you anywhere to begin with...) For some slightly less competitive programmes, 84th percentile might even help your chances.

Hi ab2013, I'd say it really, really depends on where you are applying to. What is considered a good score varies a lot between different universities, and even between MS and PhD applications. E.g. a professor at a top-20 university told me that the lower threshold to aim for for their programme was 85th percentile. Less competitive programmes likely have vastly different expectations (but, of course, few of them publish any information on that topic online). I'd say if you're in doubt, try giving the graduate administrator at the department you're applying to a call, and ask what kind of scores they are usually getting from successful applicants - they might be more willing to share this kind of information over the phone than on their website. All that being said, if I've read the PDF on ETS's website correctly, a 700 score translates to 47th percentile. My gut feeling is that this is likely not going to help your applications for most programmes (but again, if in doubt ask them).

Hi all, I'm planning to apply to a couple of PhD programmes in CS for next fall and I was wondering if I could ask your opinions on something. In particular, I have a few publications "in the pipeline", but none of them submitted or published yet. For a few of them matters are out of my hands (big collaborations with things being held up elsewhere), but for two potential first-author publications it's in principle up to me to write up and submit. For at least one of the two I might be able to do so before most of my deadlines in mid-december, but barely and it would mean I'd have less time to spend e.g. on my statement of purpose. And in any case I'd only be able to have them submitted by then, certainly not accepted or published obviously. So my question is: Do any of you have a rough feeling for how much difference a publication "submitted" makes compared to one "in progress" on a PhD application? Many thanks for your help!