LOWEST SUCCESSFUL GRE SCORES

[PHILSTUDENT22]

I'm interested in finding out what the lowest successful GRE scores have been this year. This will help future applicants figure out the answer to the inevitable "how important are GRE scores?". It might also give us an idea as to where different departments are making their cutoffs. 

Only post if your score is actually low (below 90% verbal, below 75% quant) - nobody cares about your writing score, and only if you got accepted or wait-listed at a PGR top 50. Please give you raw and percentile score, along with the PGR ranking of the relevant school. 

I'll start!

I was accepted to Indiana (25 PGR) and Syracuse (38 PGR), and wait listed at USC (13 PGR). 
My GRE was 160V (84%), 159Q (75%). The rest of my app was stellar. 

[MattDest]

I'm interested in finding out what the lowest successful GRE scores have been this year. This will help future applicants figure out the answer to the inevitable "how important are GRE scores?". It might also give us an idea as to where different departments are making their cutoffs. 

Only post if your score is actually low (below 90% verbal, below 75% quant) - nobody cares about your writing score, and only if you got accepted or wait-listed at a PGR top 50. Please give you raw and percentile score, along with the PGR ranking of the relevant school. 

I'll start!

I was accepted to Indiana (25 PGR) and Syracuse (38 PGR), and wait listed at USC (13 PGR). 

My GRE was 160V (84%), 159Q (75%). The rest of my app was stellar. 

 

To clarify - must all our scores be below this threshold? I have an abysmal quant score, but my V/AW scores were quite good. 

[TheVineyard]

I'm interested in finding out what the lowest successful GRE scores have been this year. This will help future applicants figure out the answer to the inevitable "how important are GRE scores?". It might also give us an idea as to where different departments are making their cutoffs. 

Only post if your score is actually low (below 90% verbal, below 75% quant) - nobody cares about your writing score, and only if you got accepted or wait-listed at a PGR top 50. Please give you raw and percentile score, along with the PGR ranking of the relevant school. 

I'll start!

I was accepted to Indiana (25 PGR) and Syracuse (38 PGR), and wait listed at USC (13 PGR). 

My GRE was 160V (84%), 159Q (75%). The rest of my app was stellar. 

 

Can I ask how you knew the rest of your app was stellar?

[PHILSTUDENT22]

To clarify - must all our scores be below this threshold? I have an abysmal quant score, but my V/AW scores were quite good. 

No, if you have just a low quant, I think that's worth knowing too. 

[wildc4t]

To clarify - must all our scores be below this threshold? I have an abysmal quant score, but my V/AW scores were quite good. 

 

Just by posting, you've given your info.

[MattDest]

Just by posting, you've given your info.

 

True. 

[lesage13]

This is a bit of a tangent, but I think it's in-line with the spirit of the thread. I have pretty decent GRE V and Q scores (97% and 75%, respectively), and have been moderately successful this application season (accepted by a program in the mid-40s and waitlisted by a program in the mid-20s). But my AW score was brutal--35% (3.5) and I can't help but wonder if that got my app tossed at certain places. I wonder if anyone else had a shockingly low AW score too, and if so, whether they'd be willing to share their A/W/R here. Mostly, I hoping to hear that someone with a low AW score has been successful at top programs so I can stop kicking myself for choosing not to retake the GRE.

[objectivityofcontradiction]

Wait-listed at 3 schools within (Leiter) top 25: 162 V, 145 Q score. Boom GRE, roasted. 

Edited March 11, 2014 by objectivityofcontradiction

[colinmatthew]

Wait-listed at 3 schools within (Leiter) top 25: 162 V, 145 Q score. Boom GRE, roasted. 

 

Lol! Roasting so hard right now...

[zblaesi]

Wait-listed at 3 schools within (Leiter) top 25: 162 V, 145 Q score. Boom GRE, roasted. 

I have similar scores: 160V, 145Q, 5.0AW. And I'm wait-listed at UT-Austin and UW-M. I don't know if I should feel good about myself.

[Circle of Fourths]

160verbal (84%) and 162quantitative (84%).

[greencoloredpencil]

verbal 164 (93%) quantitative 153 (53%) wait-list at Leiter top 20 school and accepted at a top 40 school. 

[Mavngoose1]

V: 160, Q: 155

Offers from 3 Leiter Top 10s, Wait-listed at 3 Leiter Top 10s, 3 Leiter top 20s

[zblaesi]

V: 160, Q: 155

Offers from 3 Leiter Top 10s, Wait-listed at 3 Leiter Top 10s, 3 Leiter top 20s

 

Dreams do come true.

[PHILSTUDENT22]

V: 160, Q: 155

Offers from 3 Leiter Top 10s, Wait-listed at 3 Leiter Top 10s, 3 Leiter top 20s

I almost don't believe it! Can you tell us a bit more about the rest of your app? 

[Mavngoose1]

I almost don't believe it! Can you tell us a bit more about the rest of your app? 

 I'm happy to talk to people in confidence via private messaging, but I'd prefer not to make much info public. 

[DHumeDominates]

Q: 156

 

Admitted to 1 Leiter top-5, wait listed at 1 Leiter top-10

[Cottagecheeseman]

Man and here I was thinking maybe my low Quant score had something to do with my lack of acceptances.

Well damn guys this is the most depressing thread yet. 

[PHILSTUDENT22]

Wait-listed at 3 schools within (Leiter) top 25: 162 V, 145 Q score. Boom GRE, roasted. 

Did you flag your quant score in your letter of purpose by chance? 

[objectivityofcontradiction]

Did you flag your quant score in your letter of purpose by chance? 

 

I asked my letter writers to address my mediocre GREs if they felt so inclined (was told this a much better strategy than wasting your own time doing it in your SOP; better to have professionals make the excuse for you than you for yourself). Guessing at least one of them did. Not sure. I did not see any of my letters. 

[zblaesi]

Did you flag your quant score in your letter of purpose by chance? 

 

No, but one of my writers said he/she would mention it in my letter (e.g., that he/she knows me personally and that the score doesn't reflect my ability).

Edited March 13, 2014 by zblaesi

[ianfaircloud]

I'm interested in finding out what the lowest successful GRE scores have been this year. This will help future applicants figure out the answer to the inevitable "how important are GRE scores?". It might also give us an idea as to where different departments are making their cutoffs. 

Only post if your score is actually low (below 90% verbal, below 75% quant) - nobody cares about your writing score, and only if you got accepted or wait-listed at a PGR top 50. Please give you raw and percentile score, along with the PGR ranking of the relevant school. 

I'll start!

I was accepted to Indiana (25 PGR) and Syracuse (38 PGR), and wait listed at USC (13 PGR). 

My GRE was 160V (84%), 159Q (75%). The rest of my app was stellar. 

 

Philstudent22, I mean this with all due respect (truly, I do):

 

When I read your description, I can't help but wonder whether your scores really did hurt you at all. You had a stellar app, and you were admitted to a top-20 department, despite your relatively low scores. Right? What more could you expect? Do you think that with better scores, you would have done better than this? I mean, frankly, you did very, very well. I know this is a sensitive subject, because not everyone has the same idea about what it means to "do well." But I think you did very well, and I think you did it with fairly low scores. This lends some credibility to my view that the optics of a 160-ish plus score is typically enough.

 

You had to have a stellar app to be admitted to a top-20 school.

 

Now listen, I think I had a stellar application. I think it's a damn good application. People in my high-ranked MA program thought so (or pretended to think so, perhaps out of sympathy for me). A good friend of mine was admitted to like seven top-30 departments or something crazy, including a few top-10s (if I recall correctly). She said that my application wasn't much different from hers, in terms of overall quality.

 

My verbal is 169 (99%), my quant is 157 (69%), and my writing is 6.0 (99%). These scores are from a test I took prior to my working for a major test prep company. My quant is now around 167 (my last diagnostic test).

 

We can't really conclude anything from this, except that there appear to be examples of weak scores among successful applicants (you) and strong scores among failed applicants (me).

 

I'm sure your application is stellar. But I don't think that the difference between you and the person who is admitted to NYU and Rutgers is the GRE score. (I don't think you mean to say this, either.) More likely, the person admitted to Rutgers and NYU is lucky and ridiculously talented and connected to the right people.

 

After this application season, I am convinced that philosophy admissions is less predictable (in terms of who will be successful) than what many would like to believe. We can shape a lot of what happens, and then some of it is like playing the lottery. Hence great applicants often fail.

 

Frankly, I'm warming up to law admissions. You plug in your numbers, and out comes your result!

[ianfaircloud]

V: 160, Q: 155

Offers from 3 Leiter Top 10s, Wait-listed at 3 Leiter Top 10s, 3 Leiter top 20s

 

I don't want to be obnoxious here, but this is exactly what I'm talking about. You beat the invisible "cut-off," which is actually quite low, and GRE becomes closer to irrelevant. The optics of a 1-6-X verbal and 1-5-X quant are enough. 

[ianfaircloud]

I was accepted to Indiana (25 PGR) and Syracuse (38 PGR), and wait listed at USC (13 PGR). 

My GRE was 160V (84%), 159Q (75%). The rest of my app was stellar. 

 

One more thing on this, since I've hijacked this thread now:

 

Someone may read you as saying the following: "If you have a stellar application, and you have really high GRE scores, you will almost certainly be admitted to more than one top-20 department."

 

I have really high GRE scores. I didn't get admitted to more than one top-20. So I must not have had a stellar application.

 

But I did have a stellar application (so I think).

 

So I reject the view that, if you have a stellar application and really high scores, you will be very successful. I think people look for reasons that they didn't do as well as they hoped. And when those people have less than perfect GRE scores, they think, "Gee, must have been my scores!" I don't think it's that simple.

 

I think it's THIS simple: a certain amount of luck is involved. And for that reason, the greatest applicants sometimes don't do as well as we think they could (should). So there's an element of the process that is not unlike playing the lottery.

[Glasperlenspieler]

 

 

My verbal is 169 (99%), my quant is 157 (69%), and my writing is 6.0 (99%). These scores are from a test I took prior to my working for a major test prep company. My quant is now around 167 (my last diagnostic test).

 

 

 

 

This may be the wrong place for this question but, do you have any idea as to how they grade the writing section?  I felt really good about it walking out of the test, but I ended up only getting a 4.5.

 

Aside from that I would say that my experience has been similar to yours Ian, despite high scores (167 verbal, 168 quant), I've only been waitlisted at one place and rejected from 7.  (Still waiting on 2 more, but those are looking more and more like rejections too).