When GRE or GMAT matter more

[europegrad]

I was reading the GRE doesn't matter post and just thought it might be interesting to discuss when GRE or, in cases of business MA and Ph.D applicants, GMAT matter more than in normal situations.

Of course, admission policy of each program counts for biggest difference among GRE importance on applicants analysis. Nonetheless, I personally believe that, under certain circumstances, GRE (GMAT when applicable) scores plays a bigger role on chances of one getting admitted or not. What do you thing about the following list of those situations:

1. Applicant is internationalIt's hard to evaluate GPA's across the board from different countries, grading systems and grade inflation cultures. In those cases, a GRE score, regardless of its own faults and shortcomings, might be a better indicator than GPA.

2. Applicant's score is far above program cohorts average score- Even if an admission committee downplays importance of GRE scores, an applicant who is otherwise on-average with others can carve his way into the program by presenting an extremely high test score. Of course, on the very top programs where average score are already high, this situation doesn't happen.

3. Undergrad GPA is terrible- For some reason one has partied hard on freshman & sophomore years and one's GPA is well below 3.0. A stellar GRE score may be the counterproof of laziness that admission committee needs. In fact, that might be the only quantitative "card on the table" the applicant might have to stand a chance of getting in.

4. Applicant hasn't good record on math/statistics courses- I can be wrong, but even for humanities programs a basic knowledge of quantitative methods are required at least as a methodological assessment tool. If one hasn't taken many (enough) quantitative

courses, or if its program didn't offerred them , the afdmission committee may be more inteested than usla on GRE scores.