Phd biostatistics Fall 2016 - mediocre GRE scores

[biostatgirl]

hi all,

i wanted to gauge my chances for admission into top 10 phd biostatistics program in the US.

Here's my background:

 

undergrad GPA: 3.75/4.00 (liberal arts college) Math and Biology double major

grad GPA: 3.6/4.00 (Top 15) MS Biostatistics, thesis published

GRE: v152 q158 AWA 5.0

US Permanent resident 

 

-strong LORs (all ivy-league alumnae)

-have a strong research direction 

-strong research background: worked for 3 years in academia as an analyst, 5 publications in journals with >3.0 impact factor, 3 first-authored, 2 co-authored

 

my concern is the GRE quant.. is it disastrously bad for top 10 phd biostat programs? i am really a bad standardized test taker..... 

please advise :\

-B

 

 

[efh0888]

I'm not in a biostat PhD program, but I imagine at any top 10 program for any quantitative discipline, a quant GRE score >= 90th percentile would be necessary but not sufficient for admission, meaning they probably won't even look at the rest of your great application. See http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table1a.pdf for scores and their percentiles.

I say re-take the GRE. Do everything you can to ace it. I recommend Magoosh. I'm a terrible test taker too and got a 95th percentile score no problem. If you can't, or more importantly, if you are unwilling to put in the time then you would not succeed in a top 10 PhD program anyway...

Edited September 27, 2015 by efh0888

[biostatgirl]

Thanks efh0888, you're right, I really need to break that 90th percentile. Just registered for a retake!