Rumor: >80% percentile GRE scores don't matter?

[shibainu]

I took the GRE and got 80% Q and V. I'm applying for top 20 PhD bioengineering programs.

I heard from a professor that after you get a GRE quant or verbal score surpassing the 80th percentile, the admissions commission does not care as much. True or false?

[shibainu]

Edit: As in, the admissions committee would rather see you put your time in taking an extra relevant class or doing something else to improve other areas of your application than improving GRE score by a couple points

[TakeruK]

My experience talking about this with professors in my field also indicate that General GRE scores are not usually judged on a "competitive" level for STEM fields. That is, if it's really low, it might be a flag, but there is no real difference from e.g. 85th percentile vs. 75th percentile. I would be pretty confident in saying that STEM graduate students should figure out where they might expect to score and put in the time to get a decent score. Beyond that, it's better to spend your time improving other parts of your application.

[tuckbro]

I found it depends on the school, but most of mine were in the top 10 and all but one of the top 10 programs to which I applied  expected 95% plus in quant and didn't seem to care about the verbal.  I think you can get a good feel for the schools of interest to you by looking at who actually got in on the results page and their scores. 

 

I found that often what they say they will accept and what they actually accept are two different things.

 

Best of luck! 

Edited December 31, 2014 by tuckbro

[serarca]

I would think that for a top program anything below 90% on math is not good enough.

[eeee1923]

In a lot of Top Engineering programs a 90th percentile Q score is expected and they actually use the verbal portion as a kind of filter.

[madbiochemist]

Heh. It definitely depends on the school. I got 79th percentile in quantitative. Kind of embarrassing among my peers. Oops. When I interviewed for the my BME PhD program, I was told that I was borderline between getting an interview and not because of my math GRE score, but one of the professors saw that I had won a math scholarship as a freshman so I got the interview. My interview went well and I got accepted. I don't think my school cares as much about the GRE. Other schools probably do, because it was my only top 10 acceptance. 

[pali123]

I got a good quantitative GRE percentile (>85%) however verbal is ridiculously bad (around 54%). Will this hinder my chances of getting into top 10? GPA is 3.85, 2 years experience, lots of presentations, strong SOP and 3 LORs. Do I still have a chance u guys? :(

[Edotdl]

On 11/25/2015, 5:00:08, pali123 said:

I got a good quantitative GRE percentile (>85%) however verbal is ridiculously bad (around 54%). Will this hinder my chances of getting into top 10? GPA is 3.85, 2 years experience, lots of presentations, strong SOP and 3 LORs. Do I still have a chance u guys? :(

A 54% in verbal is probably below the threshold for most top tier program. Although I'm not sure how many of these top programs will have hard cutoffs for each section of the GRE especially if the other parts of the application are good. My undergrad has listed minimums for GRE scores but explicitly state that candidates who are below the minimum in one section are still encouraged to apply. Finally, for engineering I hear the verbal is generally given less weight and I'm sure people have gotten into top 10 schools with those scores.

[pali123]

24 minutes ago, Edotdl said:

A 54% in verbal is probably below the threshold for most top tier program. Although I'm not sure how many of these top programs will have hard cutoffs for each section of the GRE especially if the other parts of the application are good. My undergrad has listed minimums for GRE scores but explicitly state that candidates who are below the minimum in one section are still encouraged to apply. Finally, for engineering I hear the verbal is generally given less weight and I'm sure people have gotten into top 10 schools with those scores.

Thanks @Edotdl for your reply. I am very worried about this. I come from a really good research lab and my PI really wants me to get into these top schools since every single one of his undergrads got into either Stanford or MIT for BioE. I hope I don't disappoint him! I spoke to MIT graduate advisor and she told me the cut off is just a recommendation and that they look at every single application. I hope this is true and they do not merely screen me out due to bad verbal GRE!

[nothanks700]

As others have stated, it matters quite a bit for a very elite program. In my field, finance, the top 15 or so Ph.D. Programs likely only consider those who are in the 95th percentile or above. 167 quant is about the minimum I have seen, because these programs are so extremely competitive. However, I would doubt admissions committees would see the difference between a 167 and a 170 on quant or verbal; they would notice the difference between a 163 and a 167. Seems odd, but that is the reality.