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I'm not Math/Stats but Geophysics here, so Math heavy and Quant is a pretty big in applications. Your scores are pretty similar to mine and I got into top 10 programs in my field. I was however not accepted at top 5 programs (e.g. MIT, Columbia, etc). This was due to either funding or my GRE being lower than what they make their cutoff. It's also worth noting that top 5 programs are a distinct class above the 6-10 schools for my field (at least in theory). If your goal is top 5 program I've found 80th percentile seems to be the bar for Quant in my field. Above that they don't really care unless you're pulling something like a 98th or something crazy. All of them say they do holistic reviews, which I have no doubt is true, but its probably after the GRE cull. The GRE is just such a useful standardized metric to cull the applicant pool, when you're say Harvard dealing with 500+ applications for 10 spots. My advice would be retaking it, try to get about the 80th to avoid the lower limits imposed by the best schools. Above that the GRE becomes a moot point and it's down to your experience and research drive/interests. Again, I'm Geophysics, so your mileage may vary with this advice.

Update on this. Accepted Alberta, declined Arizona. Hopefully I did decline Arizona quick enough they can pull somebody off the waitlist. Onward to Canada!

Still waiting on one school, but my profile. Undergrad: University of Colorado-Boulder Degree: BA in Geology with Honors MSc School: Oklahoma State University Degree: MSc in Geology GPAs (CU/OSU): 3.4/4.0 (big slacker in undergrad, don't waste those years people) Type of student: Classic white male GRE: Q: 159 V: 161 W: 5.5 or 6, can't recall exactly Research Experience: Undergrad thesis, 1 year with USGS, 2 years MSc thesis work. 4 conference presentations (2 talks, 3 posters, I tend to like posters more). 1 paper in submission, 1 in-prep. Variety of side projects. Additional Details: Geology major but I've made the switch to Geophysics, which means I lack the formal math of most Geophysicists, but have better Geology knowledge than most Geophysicists. Have since learned it, but my transcripts do not reflect that. Applying to Where (all PhD): UCSB - Still waiting. But things sound positive... U of Arizona - Contacted in Late Jan, visited last weekend, accepted this week U of Alberta - Heard back and accepted in Jan, visited in late Feb (separate from their typical early March visit weekend) Columbia - Rejected this week (same day as Arizona acceptance) MIT/WHOI - Rejected. Funding was an issue from my contact in the department. Stanford - Rejected. Totally fine with this one after meeting the POI in person. My GRE is okay, but I'm wagering that the Ivy's and Ivy-like schools (e.g. Stanford) probably don't care about you if you're below 80th percentile in Quant (I was 72nd) just given the quality and quantity of their applicatio. A bit jaded about Columbia to be honest, felt I had a good fit with their research, but such is life. Alberta and Arizona have some awesome people, groups and departments, so deciding between them has been incredibly difficult. I usually have a gut instinct to rely on, but not in this case.

Adding onto my last post (I don't think I can edit it directly for some reason). I did speak with some of the Columbia people there, they said in the past years they've seen higher offer acceptances rates than they usually see. Typically they expect ~50% to take offers they give out, usually because half of applications will go to other Columbia-tier schools instead. However, recently they've had more than 50% take offers (exact percent unclear). This means that they have larger grad classes than they're usually expecting. This may (may) mean that admissions will be artificially tougher as they might be looking to make less offers to ensure they don't end up with more graduates than they'd like in an incoming class, or they might be making less offers to get the number of grads back to their baseline amount (since past classes have been larger).

The last bit concerning "[paraphrasing] a poorly timed conference can set things back" might actually explain a lot of the delays from the coastal schools. We recently concluded the annual GeoPRISMS meeting in San Antonio last week and a lot of people from Columbia, Penn State, UT Austin, Oregon, Oregon State, Michigan State, and Columbia were there. Willing to bet at least a few were on the admissions committee, and might have had to delay things as a result. That article makes it sound like even if 1 person on the admissions committee is missing the whole committee is sort of grounded for the time.

Anybody heard anything from Columbia yet? I've got some deadlines on offers approaching and they seem to be really dragging their processes this year lol

I was referring to the Geophysical department. I forget they have 3 to 4 earth science departments, sorry.

Stanford is Geophysical for my reference. I forget they have like 3 or 4 earth science departments As for my 'up to speed' Boulder - former school MIT-WHOI - former adviser is one of the department heads Arizona - past experience Stanford - past experience

I can confirm the Arizona sending out visit requests in late Jan. Unsure if this means that this represents the acceptance pool or if this is just a few select people they decided to send out. For others: WHOI has finished their work. You might get a waitlist, but more than likely if you haven't heard you'll likely get a rejection here soon. Stanford decided a while ago. They move QUICK Unsure regarding anything on Columbia University of Colorado sends out visits in late Feb. Know that it's more or less a screening visit to make sure you aren't weird (relative to the average earth scientists anyway), and that acceptance is nearly guaranteed if you're offered the chance to visit.

Sounds like you dodged a major bullet. This is 4+ years of your life, anybody trying to pressure you into jumping into something at the drop of a hat is sketchy to me. To me this is comparable to a hustler saying he's got the 'opportunity of a lifetime' for you, but if you show a bit of hesitation he then tries to raise the price or make the 'opportunity' seem like it's more out of reach than it was 5 seconds before.

Historically this is the now the time where the bulk of schools start releasing acceptance and/or quasi-acceptance info (e.g. visits). Just wanted to wish everybody good luck in these next weeks! Additionally, though it's cliche take care of yourselves mentally, this is a stressful time and can make people far more anxious than it should.

Why? You walked into a test thinking you were going to crush it with limited studying. The GRE humbled that notion. Again not going to justify myself, and you stated earlier how poor of a background you came from. So you're telling me you've been able to secure enough grant/scholarship money to finance a college education (again probably something like 50-150K based on current values of college in the US) and you can't find 200 more? 200 dollars will be the a pivotal sum of money for your life? None of these are meta-analysis, they're specific to singular departments, or have dramatically less N numbers, or their goals are set for completion not ultimate success (e.g. more citations, more research done, etc) as just a quick scan can see. Additionally, so what? We can debate till we're blue regarding the validity of the GRE, but admin councils are still going to use it for the next few years at a minimum. I never said this. Again, we're all just trying to help you succeed.

I'm curious what's defined as multiple and how frequently? Is this more a metric of rapid retaking of it like 3-4 times in a 6 month interval or retaking it multiple times in the 5 year window that any single test is valid for (say 2 times rapidly and 1 time some years later)?

I'm not sure what type of pride this is, but your applications indicate otherwise. If you wanted to get into a mediocre school you would have applied elsewhere. So you didn't prepare for it much. Okay that's fine, prepare for it and you should do much better. Also the GRE doesn't test any college math, it tests math up to college level as it's made for students from engineer all the way to psych/socio who don't have to take anything beyond precalc. It's a test of logic problems, if you're sitting down to physically write out much math you're doing it wrong. Based on this it seems like you fell for the trap the GRE is supposed to catch people in. I could sit here and enthrall you with a history of the socioeconomic status of my family to pity justify myself to you but I won't. Nothing I said was intended as a derogatory remark, but I'm sorry I may have wrote it in a way that misconstrued it to you as such; additionally dirt poor is an expression in the rural midwest where I'm from. Anyway you've spent what $50000-150,000+ on an education over 4+ years of life? The GRE's 200 dollar cost (100 with the low-income voucher if you qualify) and a month of study. It's a a small sum by comparison, find a way, I know poorer people than you who have. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5c69/875be977c1de9392dd8392937ebbf606dd18.pdf This is a very well cited meta-analysis of the GRE and its predictive value for graduate student success and correlates that a good GRE corresponds to success in graduate school. If you reject this fine, but for the time being the GRE is used by everybody and the system isn't going to change soon. Don't put yourself out of it due to a stupid test. Anyway, take my advice or don't, but don't try to bite a hand that's trying to do nothing but help you succeed.

The GRE isn't a great predictor for students who all range around the same (e.g. an 88th vs a 74th is likely to be irrelevant). However, for students who range outside of the traditional range or who have a great package but a bad GRE it's a red flag. In fact probably one of the biggest, as the GRE is the only thing the student has complete control over (even grades are subjective sometimes with certain institutions giving As out like candy). This comes from a variety of admin councils I've spoken to, discussions between faculty and students at seminars I've organized, and so forth. I agree the GRE is a roadblock for low-income students, but in reality being low income is a roadblock in life in general, the GRE isn't going to be the ultimate roadblock here. Additionally, no matter how sad your story in a grad application there's always somebody with a sadder one. Harvard EPS has a requirement of the GRE but allows you to explain why you didn't take it if you don't submit the scores. Not really truly 'optional.' If anything that seems more of a test for everybody who isn't dirt poor or from some very impoverished nation with no infrastructure. Funding is an X factor we can't control for, so I don't even both. However it's unlikely that these 3 schools, all of which have considerable financial resources, couldn't scrap together a TA-ship to support a stellar candidate for a year while a POI gets money together. You are correct with the SOP. By far the most important piece of a application, but I defer to the boat analogy.