To retake or not? Applying for Engineering PhD

[second_rate]

Hi guys, so I just took the GRE yesterday and I'm a bit disappointed with my score. For the Quantitative Exam, I got 166 (94%) which was below what I thought I would get. I'm an applied math major and I found the exam easy, I even had time to review all my answers. I was surprised with my score since I was expecting a score in the range 168-170. For the verbal exam, it was even worse as I got a score of 154 (64%) and I am unsure which one was the experimental section. I was hoping to get a score of 157-160 though.

I have yet to learn how I did for the writing portion but the issue I got was relatively difficult compared to the ones I've practiced and so I'm just being optimistic that my argumentative essay will sort things out.

I am wondering, although these scores are unofficial, is there a chance they'll change once my scores will be posted on the website? If so, what's the likelihood and is it normally an increase in one's score?

Right now, I'm debating whether to retake the GRE or not. I intend to apply for a PhD in OR to a top school, for instance Columbia, and I am unsure whether my GRE scores will hurt my chances for admission. To be honest, I'm not really good in verbal but coupled with the anxiety you feel during the exam, there are times when I don't understand the passages I'm reading because my mind is just not able to focus. Retaking the GRE won't be an assurance that my anxiety will ameliorate so I am really unsure of how to proceed.

Btw, I noticed that the words in the new GRE aren't extremely difficult and unusual. What I observed is that they use simple words which have double meanings, with the double meanings used relatively infrequently in common language.

[tkulk]

GREs are grossly overrated. I got slightly lower than you in Q (V was same as Q) and got interviews/admits in top 5 engineering/science schools. What counts is research and LORs for PhD. If I were you, I wouldn't care about giving the GRE again. Instead, focus on doing more research in the mean time.

[second_rate]

Hi @tejasdkulkarni thanks for the heads up. I reviewed for it for 3 months (well not daily of course) and so I'm disappointed with the verbal score. Another thing is that I have friends from china who got 700+ on the verbal section of the old gre even though they can't really converse in english well. (They have access to websites which contain loads of questions shared by other students from China) It was a bit of a slap in the face, getting a low verbal score despite having spoken english since 5. Or maybe I just have poor inference skills, I don't know.

In your case, your verbal is still high and the scores are not that far from each other which has different implications from mine. Yup, research is OK, I have 1 co-authored (with my supervisor) journal paper and I'm working on another project now. I also participated in a 6 week research attachment in Imperial College London but it didn't turn out quite well. (In short, not very productive but learned a lot from mistakes)

[ANDS!]

Both scores are fine. It will NOT be the general GRE score that gets you bounced from a program. If you are confident with your math skills (assuming you didn't just take applied math courses) try the subject GRE. A "mediocre" score on that will say a lot more than a perfect score on the general GRE.

[TexasGuy]

i completely understand how you feel...i got a 163 on the math and was pissed (engineering major and i tutored math in college).I was acing the practice tests (which were A lot harder than the math on the exam). I was even more annoyed when i checked the free online diagnostic and found out i got a 19/20 on the first section and a 16/20 on the second section.even though i was confident about every single question. But its very easy to make silly mistakes.

Same exact situation as you as far as verbal. I was reading these really convoluted passages on the exam and thinking WTF. I can read and write perfectly well- but just could not focus on those BORING passages and started guessing on everything.

Its frustrating..but its really not worth all the stress. Seriously. Based on admissions results your scores are great for just about any school you want to go to.

[TexasGuy]

Hi @tejasdkulkarni thanks for the heads up. I reviewed for it for 3 months (well not daily of course) and so I'm disappointed with the verbal score. Another thing is that I have friends from china who got 700+ on the verbal section of the old gre even though they can't really converse in english well. (They have access to websites which contain loads of questions shared by other students from China) It was a bit of a slap in the face, getting a low verbal score despite having spoken english since 5. Or maybe I just have poor inference skills, I don't know.

In your case, your verbal is still high and the scores are not that far from each other which has different implications from mine. Yup, research is OK, I have 1 co-authored (with my supervisor) journal paper and I'm working on another project now. I also participated in a 6 week research attachment in Imperial College London but it didn't turn out quite well. (In short, not very productive but learned a lot from mistakes)

I ahve seen tonnes of people with 800 M 700+ V scores get rejected by top schools I've seen a number of people get admitted to MIT with verbal scores in the 300's and writing scores in the 3's. It's really is a holistic process They make decisions based on everything, with GRE being the least important part of your file.

Edited February 27, 2012 by TexasGuy

[second_rate]

i completely understand how you feel...i got a 163 on the math and was pissed (engineering major and i tutored math in college).I was acing the practice tests (which were A lot harder than the math on the exam). I was even more annoyed when i checked the free online diagnostic and found out i got a 19/20 on the first section and a 16/20 on the second section.even though i was confident about every single question. But its very easy to make silly mistakes.

Same exact situation as you as far as verbal. I was reading these really convoluted passages on the exam and thinking WTF. I can read and write perfectly well- but just could not focus on those BORING passages and started guessing on everything.

Its frustrating..but its really not worth all the stress. Seriously. Based on admissions results your scores are great for just about any school you want to go to.

Thanks for the encouragement texasguy. by the way, how do I access the free online diagnostic? It hasn't been 10-15 days yet since i took the test so does this mean I can't view my scores for the mean time? will ETS send me an e-mail if my scores are up? thanks!

[TexasGuy]

hey you can access your diagnostic here....

https://grediagnostic.ets.org/GREDWeb/gred/signIn.jsp

i really dont remember when exactly it was posted. I just remember checking every single day after the test. But it definitely came before my scores were available online.

I dont think ETS sent me an email when my scores became available. I saw my scores online 15 days after i took the test..

[second_rate]

Hi guys, so I just received my official scores and the ones I received right after the test were accurate! Now, I got a 5.5 for the Analytical Writing Section. I've heard that many universities just disregard this component but is this true? One school though that I checked encourages all PhD applicants to have a high writing score.

I'm pretty aware that the writing section and the verbal section measure different skills but could this, in a way, be an indicator of my proficiency in English? I've never been good in verbal but academic writing is one of my strong suits, aside from my math background...

I'm hesitant about retaking the GRE mainly to pull up my verbal score. For one, it's costly

Edited March 14, 2012 by second_rate

[eomentl]

Some references:

I sent an inquiry to the UC Berkeley Nuclear Engineering department about their average GRE scores was told that their averages for accepted students for the fast four years was

Verbal______Quant.______Analytic

550 (72%)__747 (81%)___705

540 (72%)__755 (83%)___698/4.83

540 (72%)__771 (86%)___702/4.0

549 (72%)__765 (85%)___4.1

Average scores for accepted students from Colombia's engineering school's admissions page:

V: 519 (64%), Q: 778 (88%), A: 3.6

In my opinion, it is a complete waste of time to retake the test just to bring up your verbal GRE score. Is it exceptional? No. But all things considered, a your verbal score is probably one of the least important parts on your application. I'd say a 64%V is good enough to just move on with your life. I'm assuming that the most important piece of your application tells admissions committees you're a good engineer/researcher. I'm also assuming that the GRE verbal score is not that piece.