Which GRE scores should I use for EE?

[icelandicsamurai]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm planning on applying to several electrical engineering PhD programs for Sept. admission. I took the GRE twice and obtained fairly similar results: 163V (92%), 163Q (86%), 4.5AW (80%) on my first try, and 161V (87%), 164Q (88%), 5AW (93%) on my second. I'm really not sure which scores to use as while I know that quant is more important for EE, my combined score was higher on the first sitting. If anyone has input I would really appreciate it!

[Vene]

I'm not an engineer, but I'm relatively certain that it doesn't matter as both sets of scores are pretty damn good.

[starofdawn]

I'm not sure if this helps - even though your combined score for verbal and quantitative is higher on the first sitting, your overall percentage points are better on the second sitting.

[icelandicsamurai]

Thanks for the feedback guys. The one thing is though, does the AW score matter at all? I've read that it isn't even really considered from quite a few sources. If you disregard that, then the average of the two percentiles was higher on the first try. At this point I'm thinking I might just report both hahaha

[starofdawn]

Where have you read that? I would imagine AW scores are more important than verbal scores because schools need people who are good writers, regardless of concentration - that's just my opinion.

[drstruct]

I'm in a similar situation to yours. I got 161V (87%), 168Q (95%), and 4.5AW (80%) on the first sitting, and 166V (96%), 168Q (95%), and 4.0AW (56%). Quantitative is by far the most important (I took it the second time to try for the 170). I think writing is more important than verbal, which makes me lean toward the second one. But the I'm just too proud of my second verbal score, especially being an engineering major, non-native speaker. I think I'll send both. I think there is a possibility they just consider the highest of each, since they should be interested in what I am capable of achieving.

[icelandicsamurai]

Where have you read that? I would imagine AW scores are more important than verbal scores because schools need people who are good writers, regardless of concentration - that's just my opinion.

 

I can't find a specific source but that seems to be the gist of what I've read a few places and what I've heard in person from friends. In fact, Georgia Tech ECE posts their average GRE scores and their average AW score is 3.8, while their absolute minimum is 3.5, which seems to sort of hint towards this.

 

I've though about this again though and if the GREs are in fact more of a filtering cutoff then a pure indicator, then it really shouldn't make a difference which score I pick.

 

@Drstruct, if you need to pick one of the two, I would go with the second score. 166 is a really impressive verbal score - like top 10 humanities program score. If you are ESL too it's even more impressive, and I think an adcomm would make note of that. On the other hand I dont think the difference between the AW scores isn't really that significant (on my second time I scored 0.5 higher even though one of my essay conclusions was literally 2 sentences long)

[Vene]

Where have you read that? I would imagine AW scores are more important than verbal scores because schools need people who are good writers, regardless of concentration - that's just my opinion.

 

I can't find a specific source but that seems to be the gist of what I've read a few places and what I've heard in person from friends. In fact, Georgia Tech ECE posts their average GRE scores and their average AW score is 3.8, while their absolute minimum is 3.5, which seems to sort of hint towards this.

This meshes with my experiences. The AW writing section of the GRE has nothing at all in common with being able to write like a scholar, especially in science and engineering. The conventions we follow are practically the opposite of what you see in the humanities.

[doomination]

I'd probably use the second set of scores, just to maximize your Q score.

[eeee1923]

While the Quant score is quite important in engineering, the AW actually plays a very significant role since both the Q & V sections can be "gamed" via memorization, etc. The AW section helps these programs differentiate candidates who usually have very high Q scores. Just keep that in mind - I would go with the second set since high 80% scores in Q won't really disqualify you. However, you could just send both sets and they may just pick and choose the best scores since you did pretty well both times.