GRE Retake

[gradwoes]

I'll try to be brief, as this seems to be a common question from most wary members of this forum. I took the GRE last week and got a 650 verbal, 740 math (a somewhat surprising score - on PowerPrep I was averaging 720 verbal, 650 math). As for my other background, I graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from a top-10 university (and also achieved honors in my major). I'm currently working towards my Masters at an Oxbridge university on a full scholarship. My undergrad GPA was about a 3.93, and my major-GPA was a 4.0 (weighted)/3.98 (unweighted). I'm hoping that my application accoutrements (recs/writing sample/statement of purpose) will be strong.

As for schools, I'm considering applying to programs in South Asian history at: Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, Chicago, Berkeley, and Tufts. I'm also applying to the Soros Fellowship for New Americans, the Javits Fellowship, and the Ford Fellowship (I'm a minority, but not in a category that is 'severely underrepresented' in the academy).

My adviser has told me that I have a strong application and that GRE scores will never make or break an application (he also told me that the number one factor in admissions tends to be departmental politics ). But, as silly as this may be, I just don't feel confident about my verbal score: a 650 tends to hover at the average (but below the median) at these universities. I'm also concerned that dropping $160 dollars on a retake may lead to an improvement in my verbal score, but a backslide into my PowerPrep averages on math (thus perhaps keeping my total score the same).

What are your opinions on my score? Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks!

Edited August 4, 2010 by gradwoes

[btheblueox]

My new mantra: trust your advisor. He knows your academic work the best, and, to boot, likely has oodles and oodles of experience. If he thinks your score works, then I would trust that. And if you're still skeptical, I'd poll the other professors you know well to get more data and go from there.

[milestones13]

"My adviser has told me that I have a strong application and that GRE scores will never make or break an application (he also told me that the number one factor in admissions tends to be departmental politics."

Above a certain threshold (in the land of restricted range), your adviser is correct, scores really don't matter...but to say that an 800-1100 combined score won't break an application is another thing altogether. It may or may not, but definitely might hurt an application somewhere in the review process....however, this is not something you need to worry about. Your adviser was tailoring his comments...not to the median bound hoi polloi but rather to that high achieving 'omg I didn't score 1500 should I retake or slit my wrist'? type of student...I'm not saying the latter is you in any way, but your adviser (at elite u) most likely deals with perfectionism fairly frequently...but just to let you know, there are environments where students believe they have "basically aced" the GRE with an 1100 combined and their advisors (note change in spelling, we've swung over to the US now), have to inform the student they might not make cutoffs at the schools they're interested in -- "Whattaya mean cutoffs? I aced that baby." Exhibit A, exhibit B, different worlds.

Ideally your V and your Q would be switched, but a 650 is a strong enough v and I'd be willing to bet that not even a 720 v would help you any more than a 650 would -- especially considering your perfect academic performance. If the 650 eats away at you, you can retake for that reason alone if you want, but understand the reason for doing so is mainly personal -- to show to yourself that you can score xxxx. The desire for that is fine, but best not to be conflated with what's expected of you by adcoms who are evaluating you independent of any self-referenced yen for a higher score. This sounds like easy common sense, but it's actually quite a challenge to keep the two (what they want to see versus your own sense of what you can achieve) separate.

[2xM]

OP: My goodness we have very similar qualifications and are in the exact same situation -- we even have the same total GRE score! (630V 760Q for me). Only difference is I'm in chemistry, and just getting my BSc in 2011.

If the 650 eats away at you, you can retake for that reason alone if you want, but understand the reason for doing so is mainly personal -- to show to yourself that you can score xxxx. The desire for that is fine, but best not to be conflated with what's expected of you by adcoms who are evaluating you independent of any self-referenced yen for a higher score. This sounds like easy common sense, but it's actually quite a challenge to keep the two (what they want to see versus your own sense of what you can achieve) separate.

You know, this is the most sensible thing I've read so far. I guess you're right in that if I were to retake my GRE, part of the reason would be to show that I can indeed score 800Q (actually that's what I've been getting in Powerprep all along), and that I'm worth more than just 1390. But then again at the top places applicants regularly score over 1400, so it sort of makes sense to think the adcoms expect nothing less than 1400-calibre, and anything below that would just be "unacceptable".

[gradwoes]

Thank you all for the sound advice, everyone. After thinking about this, I see myself in agreement with milestones13 - my trepidation is more psychoanalytic than admissions-related. I don't think I'm going to retake - after all, why waste another $160?