GRE scores - will great verbal outweigh not so great quant?

[alecvdpoel]

So I took the GRE last year on minimal to no studying. Last year I decided I was not going to apply until this year, but I had already scheduled a GRE so I figured I'd give it a go, take it without much studying just to see where I was at. I scored 161 on verbal, which I was obviously pretty pleased about, but only 149 on quant and 4.0 on writing. This year I'll obviously be studying before I take it another time, but I'm just curious, if I'm not able to improve my quant score that much, will schools look at a high verbal as outweighing the poor quant? Or would they choose someone that had, say, 155 on both over someone that was poorer in math? I'm going to study like crazy and hope that I can get a similar verbal score, and at least bump that quant score into the 150's! Getting a better writing score will probably help too. 

[Jolie717]

One of the professors at CSUN told a classmate of mine that they really only look at the verbal score, and aren't as interested in the quantitative or written essay portions.  But I'm sure it varies a lot by school.

[mr479]

For some, yes, for others, no. It depends on the school. I had a 161 V and 148 Q, and I was accepted to and/or had an interview with 5/8 schools. If I had taken the GRE again and scored a higher Q and a lower V than the first, say a 155 in each, I probably would have gone with the first set of scores. I imagine it's better to excel in one thing than be mediocre in everything, but that's me. I spoke with the head of the program at Western Washington, who said everything in my application was solid except for my GRE. So, again, it all depends.

Edited August 30, 2015 by Pennsatucky