How important is each individual GRE score?

[was_stl_oak]

I took the GRE on Feb. 29th, 2020 for the first time and got a 162V/153Q/5.5AWA and I was curious as to how Political Science PhD programs usually evaluate the scores. Will having scores in the 91st and 98th percentile on verbal and writing make up for my dismal 49th percentile score on the quantitative section? Should I take the test again and try to up my Q score or just go for it with these and try and to bulk up the rest of the app?

The question isn't meant to be personal to just me. I was just curious generally at how schools see someone with good scores outside of quant.

[IRTphd915]

Greetings!

In light of your not-so-stellar quant score, I'm just going to provide some general info and a few tips that I hope will help you decide whether or not to spend huge amounts of time and/or money that will go into re-taking the GRE. 

I got V159/Q153/AWA5 in my first attempt and a 161/151/5 in my second attempt and got a fully funded offer from a top 20 program. As you can see, q score-wise I was in the same boat as you and had similar questions.

So, here are a few things to consider. Before you apply, make sure you're a good fit. It must be noted, however, that I have one sole-authored publication, one work in progress (a top scholar on the subject believes it's promising), one research proposal (another top scholar believes this one is promising as well), 5 conference presentations, a pretty good SOP, great LORs from well-published researchers. I also had high grad and undergrad GPAs and did well in all introductory and advanced statistics and methods courses. I'm not confident I would have gotten into a better program with my scores, but apparently others were accepted into top 10-15 programs with lower scores. 

All in all, as I'm sure you've probably seen or heard before, it would greatly help if the rest of your profile was very strong. What exactly that means, I'm not sure. High GPA, a great SOP, stellar LORs are essential. Extensive research background (conference presentations, publications, perhaps serving as a research assistant, etc.) obviously further strengthens your application. You would also benefit from having taken and excelled in statistics, methods and other relevant math courses. This should be highlighted in your SOP. 

Others may say that you should contact potential advisors in the programs you will apply to and express your interest in working with them. That's not necessary. However, if you do decide to contact a potential adviser, make sure your email is worth their while. Don't waste their time by saying how much their work interests you and that you'd love to work with them on some unstated future research project. What I did was contact potential advisors and asked if they could provide feedback on an original research idea related to their work. I put a lot of thought into these research ideas (e.g., I showed that I had a grasp of the previous lit, provided a well thought out argument with hypotheses as well as alternative hypotheses). All except one replied very quickly and expressed enthusiastically that were interested in providing feedback, and indeed were very insightful about how to think about the causal mechanims involved, other possible ways I could approach the research question and what new literature (or important works that I did not mention) I should read. After having an in depth discussion, I then said that I was interested in the program and that I may apply and that I would enjoy working with them in the program. One of the profs I contacted told me to mention her name in the application and that she would put in a good word for me (I recieved a fully funded offer from that school). I didn't contact anyone in the top 20 program I was accepted to, so, again, it's not  necessary. It certainly could help, though. 

Anyway, I'm sure others will provide some other important things to consider, but I hope this helps!

Message me if you have any questions.

 

[Dwar]

If you can improve your score then Of course you should. However that isn’t always possible due to a variety of factors (I personally know that, 147q here). But having a low quant score isn’t the end of the world. 

Do you have classroom experience in stats or methods? Know R or STATA? If you do then I think your low quant score can be mitigated by mentioning those skills/experiences in your SOP. 

Now I won’t lie and say you can apply everywhere, there are schools that will definitely throw out your application without even looking at it due to your score. Those are schools that regularly get 200/300+ applicants so they need an efficient way to quickly judge every applicant and unfortunately GRE is the preferred method.  
 

But of course you can still succeed with that q score, assuming you have an otherwise impressive profile. I was accepted into one of my top choices and I know that others have been accepted into their top ones and even some top 20 with those scores. So it is possible, but it does make it less likely.

[ihatedecisions]

I agree with the previous posters that if you can you should definitely study more and retake. My quant score was close to 60th percentile whereas verbal was 97th or something like that and I did not get in into any of the top programs. I think quant was one of the reasons why. At the end of the day, you want to go to the best program you can so investing in this might be worth while. 

My general impression of the role of GRE is that while a bad score can disqualify you, it also will not guarantee your admission if your score is good. Really depends how it interacts with the rest of your package too.

 

 

[was_stl_oak]

4 hours ago, Dwar said:

If you can improve your score then Of course you should. However that isn’t always possible due to a variety of factors (I personally know that, 147q here). But having a low quant score isn’t the end of the world. 

Do you have classroom experience in stats or methods? Know R or STATA? If you do then I think your low quant score can be mitigated by mentioning those skills/experiences in your SOP. 

Now I won’t lie and say you can apply everywhere, there are schools that will definitely throw out your application without even looking at it due to your score. Those are schools that regularly get 200/300+ applicants so they need an efficient way to quickly judge every applicant and unfortunately GRE is the preferred method.  
 

But of course you can still succeed with that q score, assuming you have an otherwise impressive profile. I was accepted into one of my top choices and I know that others have been accepted into their top ones and even some top 20 with those scores. So it is possible, but it does make it less likely.

In response to you and the other reply that mentioned statistics and methods -- I am currently taking Statistics using R right now, and I am doing well, so I will most likely have an A in stats as well as experience using R. I have also done will in a class in political science research methods. Should I try and take and succeed in more math classes? Will programs prefer that I take some sort of calculus or something?

[Dwar]

6 minutes ago, was_stl_oak said:

In response to you and the other reply that mentioned statistics and methods -- I am currently taking Statistics using R right now, and I am doing well, so I will most likely have an A in stats as well as experience using R. I have also done will in a class in political science research methods. Should I try and take and succeed in more math classes? Will programs prefer that I take some sort of calculus or something?

Honestly, unless you are applying to like Rochester or NYU or another math heavy program, I think stats and methods (R/STATA) is really all that matters. Sure going further into math might show that you really know your stuff, but unless you actually enjoy it and are sure that you'll do well in those classes i don't really see a point. 

Be sure to mention both your stats course and your methods training in your SOP, and if possible incorporate methods into your writing sample. 

Like what was said above, at the end of the day programs are going to either care about the GRE score or they aren't. At the end of the day it is just one facet of your profile. Rightly or wrongly (in my opinion wrongly) some programs use the GRE as a filter for applicants, so i'd just recommend you avoid those programs. If you have an otherwise outstanding profile i see no reason why you shouldn't get accepted anywhere that you apply (within reason).