navier

Thanks for the reply. I haven't retaken the GRE. I'm certain the quant score was accidental (I've scored no less than 780 on all my practice tests w/o studying for it), but my verbal was a little lower than test scores. (I guess memorizing obscure words, out of context, isn't my thing) I can only take the new GRE (no time in my schedule until mid-August), which is fine because on a practice test I took they said my quant was 750-800 - I personally think the new quant is easier since you're provided a calculator - but my verbal was still in the low range. For some reason my verbal is extremely low, even though I've always been a solid writer and gotten solid grades on AP English exams. I don't want to retake the exam if I don't have to, although I will as mentioned above. Do you think I should? I mean will my current score really keep me out of the top places? Thanks again in advance.

Hi all: I'm a junior MechEng student and I'm looking for some advice. I've done fairly awful on the GRE, but I have solid stats elsewhere and I'm looking to get into a top PhD program for Fall 2012 (next years application cycle). 3.9 GPA (Honors program) @ top 20 engineering university 1.5 years research by the time I'll have applied Several awards: Amgen scholar, some scholarships, consecutive dean's list One pub (non-1st author), some poster presentations Research in biomaterials and tissue engineering GRE: 740Q, 450V, 5.0W (yikes, I know!) Very solid LOR's (with connections at MIT) I'm looking to pursue a PhD in either MechE or Biomed/BiologicalEng at a top university/lab (MIT, UCB, Stanford, JHU, etc.) Do you think my low GRE will keep me out of these top programs? I know it's used as an initial filter, but I think I'm too low to make it past that filter (but not certain). I really don't want to retake it (I've never been great at standardized testing for some reason), but I will if I truly need to to have a shot at these top places. What do you guys think? Thanks in advance!