significance of low quant grade for History PhD

[Manana]

Hi everyone,

I'm about to take the GRE in a couple of days (yeah it's late, the original date I was supposed to take it on was cancelled and that's the earliest one ETS could offer).

I'm pretty sure I am going to do ok in verbal,  but I'm probably going to bomb in the quant section. Do you think it will affect my chances of getting into History programs in top schools?

[JWilliams]

[This answer is probably after you took the GRE. Even so, it might be helpful for others...]

 

Your GRE score may surprise you (the free ETS sample tests will actually give you a pretty good idea what to expect). Even so, I would guess that History programs, if they really care about the general GRE, would focus more on the verbal score.

From the answers I've seen by faculty on selection committees where the GRE is still used, in many programs the GRE really only comes into consideration if scores are phenomenally low and other application materials just don't tell them much. And I know people who have gotten into highly-ranked programs with ridiculously low subject GRE scores.

You DON'T need perfection in this area: PhD programs are really about research, not providing quick answers about how many degrees there are in the vertex of an octogon. But if you really want to know, you might contact some professors in those programs and ask them their approach (be mindful that the answer can ALSO vary from professor to professor, unfortunately).

Edited December 20, 2019 by JWilliams