question about if schools view (and care about) past GRE scores you sent to them

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

Say you took the GRE a year ago and got very mediocre scores, and you had those scores sent to a few schools the day of the test, but then you decided NOT to apply to any schools that year. Then, say you retook the GRE a year later and got outstanding scores, and you sent them to schools (including some of the schools you sent the mediocre scores to a year prior), and then you applied to all the schools you sent the new and improved scores to. Now, would the schools you sent the mediocre scores to a year ago (although you never applied) still be able to see your old scores? and would they even care about your old scores? if, for example, your scores jumped from the 50th percentile to the 95th percentile upon retake.

[sugarmilk]

I am in the exact same situation. I took the GRE last year, and I am applying this year with better scores.

It seems how long the scores are kept on file varies from school to school. Only one school still had my old GRE score, which I viewed in the "check my application" feature. They haven't received my new scores yet because I only just took it again. I do not know whether they will replace the old score report when the new one comes, or if they will look at both. It's a good question!

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

Yeah. And I don't know if they'll view it as a positive or a negative. I mean obviously if it jumps from a 50th to 95th percentile it will show that you didn't study for the first take, perhaps because you weren't that serious about it, but then you really busted your tail and improved your score by a lot. This can be seen as a positive; it can say 1) he's really serious about grad school now, 2) his original scores don't reflect his intelligence, and 3) he has strong work ethic and study practices. Or it can be seen as a negative; 1) he needs a lot of work to improve his scores, 2) he must not be that intelligent, and 3) he must not be that responsible to have submitted such crappy scores to us the first time. I really don't know how schools would look at that. I mean you shouldn't be punished for taking a "practice attempt," but I guess you shouldn't submit a practice attempt to a school.

[midnight]

I think most schools are mostly or exclusively interested in your highest scores, and any improvement is good. Many people bomb the GRE on their first attempt for many reasons (didn't have time to study, didn't realize it's not straightforward, etc.); it's simply not an intuitive test.

I submitted the scores from both of my tests even though my quant was absolutely abysmal the first go-round. Why? Because my AW dropped between the first and second test, and I wanted to include the 5.0 from my first attempt.

I truly think they judge you based on the higher scores. There's not really much incentive for them not to do so, especially since other people may have done poorly as well but didn't report it; there's no way for them to know, and that's understood.