My GRE percentile rank has gone down?

[Astrid Coleslaw]

I took the GRE just before they changed to the new test, in July 2011. I got my score report in the mail and was satisfied with my score, even though I flubbed the Quant section.

My scores were 680 V, 650 Q and 4.5 Writing with respective percentiles 96, 59 and 67.

A few months passed, I started paying the obscene amount of money ETS requires to forward a letter with my scores to grad schools (over twenty bucks? REALLY? Such a racket) and I get a confirmation letter in the mail saying my scores were sent to the 2 initial schools I chose.

However, when I read the letter I found my percentile ranks were different than the initial report!

The scores were the same but the percentiles were 96 V, 56 Q and 72 Writing! Why the heck is this? I was kind of pissed to see my Q go down, since I wasn't happy with it from the beginning but I guess my writing going up was good?

My question is, WTF did this happen in the first place? More importantly, which scores do I report to my grad schools that ask for percentile? I have already entered the old ones in some of my apps that I've submitted. If the schools receive the updated report from ETS with the different rankings, will that be considered lying on my app?

[orangeMan]

The reference group must have changed. Your test score, 650 verbal, is relative to the current reference group.

[galipettes]

That happened to mine as well. I posted the most recent ones They see all the scores sent anyway, so just write down the most recent ones.

[ecritdansleau]

I took the gre in July also, and this happened with my quant score as well (the percentile went down...) It sucks, but, I try to remember it's probably not that big of a deal in the big scheme of things.

[Pitangus]

Like orangeman said, the percentiles probably changed now that the revised tests taken this fall have been scored, which was to be expected since the change was so radical and relatively few people have taken the new test so far. The fact that the old test taker's Q percentiles went down suggests to me that either people did better on the new Quant test or the concordance table used to equate old and revised scores isn't exacted yet.

I self-reported my old percentiles to two schools, but I sent my score request for those two early (before the first round of revised tests were scored I guess), so the confirmation report I got in the mail was still in the old format with the old percentiles.

My third school only asked for scores on the online app, not percentiles, if I remember correctly, which I guess is good because I sent that score request later and got the new format report. Though I did use my old percentiles in an email I sent to a POI at that school.

I would report the new percentiles from now on but don't worry about what you've already sent. I really doubt anyone will care about the percentile discrepancy because they know the test changed, and even the score report looks different. As long as the scores themselves were reported correctly no one will suspect dishonesty.

[Astrid Coleslaw]

Thanks everyone, I just needed some reassurance. Curse/Thank all you new-test takers for diluting my score with your good math (but crappy writing ) scores!