Should I retake the GRE?

[pax et caritas]

For context, I am a political science/philosophy double major and German minor, and I intend on applying to political theory PhD programs this fall. The ones I’m most interested in are Notre Dame, Duke, Georgetown, U Chicago, Catholic University, and maybe Cambridge or another European university if I’ve got enough money to spare. 

My GRE scores are V: 162 Q: 156 A: 5.5. 

Most of the schools I listed above have slightly higher averages for verbal and quant, so I’m wondering if I should bite the bullet and retake the test. Thing is, I don’t have a lot of money to spend (especially since I’m saving up to pay for application fees), and my score is decent, so I’m wondering whether it’s worth investing the extra time (for studying) and money to take the test again. I won’t be hurting if I take the time and money to take it again, but it wouldn’t be ideal. 

For what it’s worth, the rest of my application should be decent to strong (lengthy list of extracurriculars, good LORs, and -hopefully- a good writing sample).

Any feedback is much appreciated!

Edited August 8, 2019 by pax et caritas

[hector549]

On 8/8/2019 at 3:27 PM, pax et caritas said:

For context, I am a political science/philosophy double major and German minor, and I intend on applying to political theory PhD programs this fall. The ones I’m most interested in are Notre Dame, Duke, Georgetown, U Chicago, Catholic University, and maybe Cambridge or another European university if I’ve got enough money to spare. 

My GRE scores are V: 162 Q: 156 A: 5.5. 

Most of the schools I listed above have slightly higher averages for verbal and quant, so I’m wondering if I should bite the bullet and retake the test. Thing is, I don’t have a lot of money to spend (especially since I’m saving up to pay for application fees), and my score is decent, so I’m wondering whether it’s worth investing the extra time (for studying) and money to take the test again. I won’t be hurting if I take the time and money to take it again, but it wouldn’t be ideal. 

For what it’s worth, the rest of my application should be decent to strong (lengthy list of extracurriculars, good LORs, and -hopefully- a good writing sample).

Any feedback is much appreciated!

Those are decent scores. My sense, based on my experience of taking and re-taking the GRE, is that there's a diminishing-returns effect that comes into play with GRE prep. It's worth putting in some time to study for the test, because study pays off. However, at a certain point it will take copious effort and time to raise one's score to some further and lesser extent. How much did you study for the test? If you already put some decent time in, then I'd say it's probably not worth investing lots of further time (and money) for a re-take. That time would be better served working on your writing sample, which is more important anyway.

Edited August 10, 2019 by hector549

[pax et caritas]

18 hours ago, hector549 said:

Those are decent scores. My sense, based on my experience of taking and re-taking the GRE, is that there's a diminishing-returns effect that comes into play with GRE prep. It's worth putting in some time to study for the test, because study pays off. However, at a certain point it will take copious effort and time to raise one's score to some further and lesser extent. How much did you study for the test? If you already put some decent time in, then I'd say it's probably not worth investing lots of further time (and money) for a re-take. That time would be better served working on your writing sample, which is more important anyway.

I did the math review in the ETS study book, but that's basically it. Granted, it was a fairly large section of the book, and I probably took about a month with it. 

You're absolutely right about the writing sample. I've recently decided I'm going to write basically a new one, so I might need to focus on that.