I'd say it's the opposite. If you majored in English as an undergrad, you should be getting a good score. If you didn't major in English, a low score would be understandable.
Does anyone have any publications in academic journals? It certainly helps to have one, right? I just found out my writing sample was published in a journal in the U.K., so I wrote a letter to all the places where I applied informing them. Does anyone know how much weight committees put on publications? Please forgive me if there's already a thread about this.
If you were a successful English Ph.D. applicant to the top ten schools in the past, please tell us your GRE scores, GPA, and other profile information.
Thanks.