GRE Unofficial Score Report Submission - Mandatory?

[karlbaria]

Hi !

I am applying to NWU, UT Austin USC and CMU for MS in Business Analytics (Fall 2016 intake)

As part of the online application process, the schools require an Unofficial GRE score report to be submitted to them.

My Question:

I have submitted official GRE score reports through ETS, is it still necessary to submit unofficial GRE score report?

Moreover, the unofficial score reports list all the attempts in the last 5 years whereas the official score reports the highest of the lot

[Gvh]

I have a similar problem -- I've heard of people blocking out scores that weren't relevant, in an obvious way so that it doesn't look surreptitiously doctored. :/ But I'll be interested to see what others have to say about this.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Gvh

[fuzzylogician]

My understanding of the "unofficial report" was that it was essentially you self-reporting the score that you'll send the official report for. Maybe that was a mistaken interpretation. In any event, I don't think you are generally obligated to share all your scores with them; I think you can choose to submit the latest/best one. However, if this school explicitly asks for each attempt over the past 5 years, I don't see how you can get out of doing that and not lie when you will later affirm that you've provided all and only truthful information that was required. 

[Gvh]

Thanks Fuzzy, I think this is true, but I've also seen instances where the school asks for an uploaded "unofficial report" (i.e. the page you see on the the ETS website of your scores; in same way they ask for "unofficial transcripts"); but they don't explicitly ask for all attempts. It just so happens that the report *displays* all attempts. 

[TakeruK]

To karlbaria: I think the best thing to do is to just ask. Sometimes the official score report goes to the University and it's harder for the department to link up your application with the score.

To karlbaria and Gvh: I know I wrote about blanking about the unnecessary info on the ETS Unofficial reports before. I think another thing you could do is instead of uploading the screenshot from the ETS website, you just type out a letter where you state that you do not want to supply the ETS Unofficial report as it contains your personal information you don't want to share and instead, your reported scores will be as follows ....  This way, the department can still get your intended reported scores without having to wait for the University/Graduate School to link up your application and your ETS record. If you're not sure if the school wants the Unofficial Report because it has all the attempts, you can just ask them if you can just send an unofficial copy of your scores in a letter (don't mention that you have taken more than one test of course).

However, if the school is explicitly asking for all attempts, then fuzzy is right---you don't really have a choice but to provide them with this information if you want to apply. I think schools that do this are trying to circumvent the system and are acting in bad faith, but if you choose to apply to them, then that's what you would have to do! 

[Gvh]

I guess the most reliable and least-sketchy option would be to order a report from the ETS website to yourself, obviously only ordering your best score, and then scanning and uploading that. However, this will cost us $27. I think if you have 10 schools that ask for this it might be worth it. I haven't finalized my list yet so I'm not sure how many require this, but it might just be worth $27 just for the peace of mind :/ How silly would it be to get rejected because of a freaking ETS score report!