TwistedRiddles

I actually talked to a few professors in my department today, and one who was head of graduate studies in the department and the general consensus is that schools will not care about my quantitative. The professor who was head of graduate studies actually said it doesn't matter at all to anybody. I'll never use math in my field and they don't care about getting well-rounded applicants. They care about my verbal and my SOP and WS and letters. So I can relax now and not worry about taking it again.

I don't test well on standardized tests in general. So 610 is actually a really good score for me on the verbal. It's 70 higher than I was getting in practice exams. And retaking the test is something I want to avoid unless I absolutely have to. The stress that I went through in order to take it was so paralyzing that I'm afraid if I have to do it again I may get seriously ill. If I absolutely have to take it again then I will, but if I can manage to get into a program and get an assistantship without retaking it then I really want to avoid it. My main question, though, was whether people thought my math score would hurt my chances of getting into an English program.

I'm an English Major and I'm applying to grad programs for next fall. Taking the GRE was one of the most stressful things I've ever done. It had me in a terrible state for weeks and I don't want to have to do it again. I was mainly concerned about my Verbal score because I didn't feel I was going to do as well as I should so I kind of neglected the quantitative section and, as a result, my quantitative is very very low. My final scores were 610 for Verbal and 380 for Quantitative. I know there are professors teaching at my school who did worse on the quantitative but that was like twenty years ago. I'm suddenly very scared that I just killed my chances of getting into grad school. I cannot afford not to be in grad school with an assistantship next year. The rest of my application will be good. I have a 3.95 GPA in my Major and a 3.9 overall GPA. I've taken about 105 credits in English courses and I have an excellent writing sample and will write a great SOP, I'm sure. I also have letters of recommendation from professors who I know really like me and know me well. I'm very worried that my low quantitative score is going to ruin that, though. I know people say that the quantitative doesn't matter much in an English program but no one has said it doesn't matter at all and I'm starting to really freak myself out because I'm afraid a school will look at that terrible score and throw out my application. Anyway, does anyone have any advice or consolation?