IS IT WORTH IT TO RETAKE GRE?

[tcable7127]

Hey everyone, I am an upcoming MS student in mechanical engineering for Fall 2012. My undergrad GPA was not good at all (3.05), and I have decent scores on the GRE. I took the GRE three different times, because the first two times I thought "I'm an engineer with a math minor... this is algebra how hard could it be?", and the last time I actually studied. My scores are below for the three different attempts:

• Old GRE - 610 (89%) VERBAL, 690 (72%) QUANT, 3.5 (29%) WRITTING
  
• New GRE - 156 (72%) VERBAL, 156 (74%) QUANT, 4.5 (72%) WRITTING
  
• New GRE - 158 (79%) VERBAL, 164 (91%) QUANT, 5.5 (89%) WRITTING
  

I am trying to get national fellowships and entry into the top schools in the nation for my Phd in a year or so. Apparently they are changing the score reporting for the GRE this July 2012 to where you have the option of only reporting your best score. Sooo, my question is, is it worth it to take the GRE again if I know I can do better?

[Inspired V]

One thing to keep in mind is that your graduate GPA will probably count for more than your undergraduate, so your performance in your MS could strengthen your applications. When it comes to GRE I think it's hard to know where are personal limits are. You say you know you can do better, but what reasons do you have for thinking that and how much better do you think you can do? What will you be able to do differently in preparing for the test in the future, compared to what you did this last time when you actually studied? If you've got the time and money I guess it doesn't hurt to retake it (I'm guessing the quantitative scores for engineering PhD's is generally top notch -- but I'm in social sciences so that's just conjecture) but it might be worth trying to find out the stats of people who have received the types of fellowships you're considering to see if it's necessary first. Otherwise it just seems like a lot of energy wasted on a test that could be better put in to academics and research. Just my two cents...

[emmm]

Taking it 4 times seems a bit excessive -- your latest scores seem fine . . .

[ghanada]

I had nearly identical scores, except my verbal was 161. I am going to University of Michigan - Ann Arbor in the fall for a BME PhD so your scores are probably high enough for top 10 schools. That being said, last fall before I turned my apps in and I was talking to a POI at UMich, she told me my quant. was a little low since it was just below their average. My old format score was 770 and apparently UMich's average is 780. I didn't think this was a deal breaker, but I think top eng schools consider anything below 800 to be slightly weak. So in hindsight I would have retaken the GREs again. I am skeptical that those 30 extra points were the difference between a rejection and acceptance, but if you are applying to top places you might as well make your app as absolutely strong as possible.

Make sure you keep your Masters GPA up. Since your undergrad GPA is so low you will need a fantastic Masters GPA combined with near perfect Quant GRE scores to be competitive in top eng PhD schools. I was in a similar situation as you and had a terrible undergrad GPA (<3.0), but had a 3.8 Masters GPA so that helped a bit. However, I will warn you that grad schools will not discount your undergrad completely and you will probably get lots of rejections regardless of how well you do in your Masters. This is what I was told by admissions people regarding my own app. So apply to lots of places and really strengthen your app during your Masters, but realize that for top tier schools it can nearly be impossible to overcome a bad undergrad GPA. Good luck!

[mrcrzister]

Comparing to your GRE scores, mines are much worse. V: 146 (31%), Q: 164 (91%), W: 2.5 (4%). But hey I still win a national fellowship (NDSEG). So I don't think GRE is a deciding factor in fellowship applications as you can tell. I am still in shock that I got the fellowship given how competitive it is.