Good Quant Grades for Masters, Bad Quant GRE score

[&789ghiJ]

Hi everyone,

I trying to apply to Sociology PhD programs for the 2021 cycle. I am trying to get into a top 20 school but I'm worried about my quant score (it's a 154). That being said, I did my masters in Public Policy and took additional data science/statistics courses outside my formal course work (up to hierarchal modeling). At the end, my GPA was 3.84. I've heard that if you can prove you have quant abilities in some capacity, you can make up for a low quant score on GRE. Is this just grad schools trying to play it cool and I actually have to retake the GRE or will they actually overlook my low GRE score?

[lkaitlyn]

Some schools haven't cared about GRE quant scores very much historically (e.g., Berkeley), and others are very score-happy (e.g., Stanford). If you're not marketing yourself as a quant researcher, you will probably be fine at schools that favor qualitative methods since you've demonstrated basic competency in other ways. If you're pitching yourself as a quant person, the GRE score might be a bit of an issue.

But ultimately, every year people get into top programs with a wide range of scores. The GRE is a racially-biased, flawed measure of people's capabilities that doesn't correlate with grad school performance, and if your application package is strong, schools will overlook a lower GRE section score. Focus more on other parts of your application.