Retaking the GREs a year later ...

[crimsonengineer87]

Hey guys,

So I've been thinking about retaking the GREs, in order to make myself more competitive for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. With my scores (Q 720, V 450, A 5.0) I was accepted into Berkeley, Illinois, UW, WSU, and UC Davis. Unfortunately, only UW and WSU offered funding and I stayed at my undergrad to continue a master's at WSU. My advisor said that she got around the same scores as I did, but didn't want to gamble if she got lower scores. Unfortunately, if you take the GREs again, they apparently get to see both sets of tests, and can see if you massively failed.

I have a pretty good resume (apparently just getting into Berkeley is good ...). My field is civil engineering and I want to do research in nitrogen cycling/modeling. In addition, I've done lots of extracurricular activities, had a research internship in Germany, and had a summer internship with BP (yes the oil company ... eek!).

What do you guys think? Is the $150 (is that how much it costs?) worth it? I would probably focus on verbal, but who knows that would happen. When I took the GREs about a year ago, I didn't even answer two Q questions, so I think a 720 is pretty good for not answering two questions.

Anyways, I'd really appreciate your guys' opinion/advice!

crimson

[Mr. Wonton]

Most competitive grad school applicants in quantitative fields, especially engineering, have perfect quantitative scores - remember, it's the percentile that's more important than the actual score. While your essays are the most important parts of your application, you certainly don't want to give your review panel any reason to reject you. I would spend the $160 and try to bring up that score (with an emphasis on the quant).