GRE Questions

[C0FF33B3ANS]

Hi everyone,

I have a few questions regarding the GRE. I plan to take the GRE twice and want to know if the schools I am applying to will have access to both scores  or just the highest or most recent score even if I use the Score Select service? Also, do I need to know the exact list of schools I wish to send my scores to at the time of the exam, or can I have my scores sent once I finalize which schools I will be applying to?  Lastly, I read somewhere that programs may buy your name from ETS if one chooses to fill out the biographical information. What are your thoughts on this option?

Thanks for your time and good luck with your studying!

[TakeruK]

1. If you use ScoreSelect, you have three options of scores to send:

ALL: This schools gets all of your scores in the last 5 years.

MOST RECENT: The school gets the most recent report only.

ANY (only available as a choice when you are ordering score reports after test day): You pick any set of scores you want to send. (i.e. send one, two, or as many scores as you'd like)

See: https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/scoreselect

2. No, you do not have to know the exact list of schools you want to send scores to. However, if you want to use your four free score reports, you will have to provide this information on test day (and note that you can only choose "ALL" or "MOST RECENT" for free score reports ordered on test day).

3. I don't know anything about that, sorry.

[C0FF33B3ANS]

1. If you use ScoreSelect, you have three options of scores to send:

ALL: This schools gets all of your scores in the last 5 years.

MOST RECENT: The school gets the most recent report only.

ANY (only available as a choice when you are ordering score reports after test day): You pick any set of scores you want to send. (i.e. send one, two, or as many scores as you'd like)

See: https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/scoreselect

2. No, you do not have to know the exact list of schools you want to send scores to. However, if you want to use your four free score reports, you will have to provide this information on test day (and note that you can only choose "ALL" or "MOST RECENT" for free score reports ordered on test day).

3. I don't know anything about that, sorry.

Thanks for the help!

[puyple]

1. If you use ScoreSelect, you have three options of scores to send:

ALL: This schools gets all of your scores in the last 5 years.

MOST RECENT: The school gets the most recent report only.

ANY (only available as a choice when you are ordering score reports after test day): You pick any set of scores you want to send. (i.e. send one, two, or as many scores as you'd like)

See: https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/scoreselect

2. No, you do not have to know the exact list of schools you want to send scores to. However, if you want to use your four free score reports, you will have to provide this information on test day (and note that you can only choose "ALL" or "MOST RECENT" for free score reports ordered on test day).

3. I don't know anything about that, sorry.

So are you saying that if you report your scores during test day, it doesn't cost you anything, but if you send your scores after test day, they charge you?

[TakeruK]

Yes, on test day, you are able to send your score to four schools for free, as part of your testing fee! 

https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/scores/send/

[stillalivetui]

They charge $27 per score report after the free four. 

[Jay's Brain]

I do want to make a comment about the Score Select service that I have experienced personally. 

As described by previous posters above, you have the opportunity to either submit your scores to 4 institutions at the end of your GRE (when you've received feedback for your VR and QR). Alternatively, you can decline this option and pay more ($27) to submit to each school individually. In the past, I have done both. I wasn't sure which schools to choose, so I include the institution number for schools I knew I was applying to and submitted the other ones later. 

My one caveat about whether schools see your full set of scores or your individually selected set of scores is this. I had a two institutions that insisted I submit a scanned printout of the score summary found on my ETS account after I have received the scores. This would be fine normally, but I had actually done the exam more than once. So, even though I had submitted my latest set of scores as an official document to the school already, the school still saw my older set of scores when I submitted my unofficial copy. There really was no way around it, which, depending on your school's system, really cancels out the added value of the Score Select system.

Just wanted to provide insight that some people might not have realized! Be wary of how schools ask for your raw scores!  

[TakeruK]

I wrote my test before the ScoreSelect system but something similar to Jay's Brain happened to me. In the old system, you can select whether or not the school sees all of your General GRE scores only, all of your Subject GRE scores only, or all of your General & Subject scores. For one school, there was a problem in submitting the GRE score (I had the wrong institution number) and instead of making me pay for another score report, they said that for decision-making purposes, they will accept the printout as Jay's Brain described.

However, my problem was that I didn't want to submit my Subject GRE scores to this school (they were optional and my scores weren't great). So what I did was scan the PDF, edit it to block out the Subject scores (as well as information on what other schools received my scores, as that appears on my copy of the score report). I made it obvious that I blocked it out (to be clear that I haven't "doctored" the scores) and wrote a note on the scanned PDF that I blocked out "non-essential information". 

So, unless the whole purpose of the school's request was to circumvent ScoreSelect (which I think is a bad thing to do), the school should be okay with this.

[Jay's Brain]

I wrote my test before the ScoreSelect system but something similar to Jay's Brain happened to me. In the old system, you can select whether or not the school sees all of your General GRE scores only, all of your Subject GRE scores only, or all of your General & Subject scores. For one school, there was a problem in submitting the GRE score (I had the wrong institution number) and instead of making me pay for another score report, they said that for decision-making purposes, they will accept the printout as Jay's Brain described.

However, my problem was that I didn't want to submit my Subject GRE scores to this school (they were optional and my scores weren't great). So what I did was scan the PDF, edit it to block out the Subject scores (as well as information on what other schools received my scores, as that appears on my copy of the score report). I made it obvious that I blocked it out (to be clear that I haven't "doctored" the scores) and wrote a note on the scanned PDF that I blocked out "non-essential information". 

So, unless the whole purpose of the school's request was to circumvent ScoreSelect (which I think is a bad thing to do), the school should be okay with this.

Smart! Maybe that's why I got shortlisted, but didn't receive a final offer to those schools