Should I retake my GRE?

[gidadu1]

Hey all, I'm applying to programs this fall and am wondering if I should retake my GRE. I am applying to the ThD at Duke, and then the PhD in theology at Yale, Vanderbilt, Emory, SMU, Boston U, and possibly Notre Dame and University of Chicago. My stats are:

Current GPA in Master of Divinity program: 3.96

GRE Verbal: 164

GRE Quant: 156

GRE Analytical Writing: 5.0

I was pretty surprised by the analytical writing portion -- I took the GRE in 2009 and got a perfect score on the writing, but apparently my writing has declined by a full point since then. Also I'm not sure if my undergrad GPA matters or not--it's a 3.71 in English. Thoughts? Should I retake to try to get a higher writing score? I'm especially looking for thoughts from anyone who has gotten into a program. Are these scores enough to throw me out of the running if I'm up against people with higher scores?

[xypathos]

As per the GRE, you're in the 94th percentile on V and 93rd on AW. These aren't numbers to balk at, you're going to survive all of these institutions' cutoff, presuming they have one. There are far more potentially disastrous things in your application to work on.

Edited October 30, 2015 by xypathos

[Abdelazar]

What others have said on here is that the GRE seems to often be used to determine whether the admissions committee should look closely over an application or not. Applicants with very low GRE scores (below about 90th percentile on the Verbal) may be put aside as not requiring close attention to the rest of the application. There are some schools, though, where the GRE score may be used to determine the level of funding. Check other posts for more details, or someone else may have more to say about this here.

I also received a full point lower score on the analytical writing section the second time I took it. It's frustrating, but didn't seem to hurt my chances.

[GradSchoolTruther]

90th percentile is not "very low."

[SamStone]

30 minutes ago, GradSchoolTruther said:

90th percentile is not "very low."

Sure, 90th percentile may not be "very low" overall. But it might be considered low in the case of various humanities applications, since topics like religion, theology, or philosophy require more "verbal" skills than quantitative ones. If I had scored lower than 90th on the verbal section, I would have taken it again. 

But the OPs score seems good enough to not cause any worry from any admission committee. 

[random_grad]

On 10/30/2015, 1:53:26, ske-herm said:

Hey all, I'm applying to programs this fall and am wondering if I should retake my GRE. I am applying to the ThD at Duke, and then the PhD in theology at Yale, Vanderbilt, Emory, SMU, Boston U, and possibly Notre Dame and University of Chicago. My stats are:

Current GPA in Master of Divinity program: 3.96

GRE Verbal: 164

GRE Quant: 156

GRE Analytical Writing: 5.0

I was pretty surprised by the analytical writing portion -- I took the GRE in 2009 and got a perfect score on the writing, but apparently my writing has declined by a full point since then. Also I'm not sure if my undergrad GPA matters or not--it's a 3.71 in English. Thoughts? Should I retake to try to get a higher writing score? I'm especially looking for thoughts from anyone who has gotten into a program. Are these scores enough to throw me out of the running if I'm up against people with higher scores?

give yourself a break, these are great scores.

[RD_Paul]

For what it's worth, I'm applying this cycle as well with a V 163, Q 156 and AW 6.0. I've been told by everyone I've talked to that those numbers are more than good enough. If mine are good enough, then your scores certainly are as well. Good luck!

[GradSchoolTruther]

33 minutes ago, SamStone said:

Sure, 90th percentile may not be "very low" overall. But it might be considered low in the case of various humanities applications, since topics like religion, theology, or philosophy require more "verbal" skills than quantitative ones. If I had scored lower than 90th on the verbal section, I would have taken it again. 

But the OPs score seems good enough to not cause any worry from any admission committee. 

90th percentile would never be considered low by an admissions committee. even in humanities programs. Sorry, but GRE scores aren't going to be the tiebreaker. At that point, it's LORs and SOPs.

[SamStone]

4 minutes ago, GradSchoolTruther said:

Sorry, but GRE scores aren't going to be the tiebreaker. 

Thats true, they wouldn't be a tie breaker (at least I would hope not)

Edited November 12, 2015 by SamStone

[TTG49]

First, to the poster, those scores are solid, and I don't think you should worry about taking them again. Also, Undergraduate GPA is important, and 3.71 is also solid.

But I do want to offer a little bit of a counter to the idea that GRE scores are primarily about being higher than a minimum cutoff and then are irrelevant. I know that's the case at a lot of programs, and I'm sure likewise that at most programs they wouldn't be a tiebreaker. But I know that for at least one of the top programs, GREs are very important parts of the application even in late decision making stages, as frustrating as that may be.

So, basically, everyone should try to get the best scores they can. Which is all anyone can do anyway. Just wanted to throw that out there, as the GRE I think sometimes plays a larger role than people allow sometimes on these forums. 

[Malthusian]

Good scores but focus on developing a strong application as a whole. Simply having a good GRE score will not ensure entry.

[gidadu]

Just wanted to provide an update -- I did get into a program  But -- I did hear from one of my professors that some schools, primarily ivy, won't even look at applications that are below 99th percentile on the GRE. So that was a bummer, because my top choice didn't even look at my application at all because of my GRE scores (my prof was in contact with the POI at the school I was looking at, and heard it straight from him). Soo... all that to say, clearly my GRE scores didn't prevent me from getting into a program -- BUT they did prevent me from even getting looked at in certain programs. Take those GREs seriously!  

Edited March 23, 2016 by gidadu

[Laodiceans]

25 minutes ago, gidadu said:

Just wanted to provide an update -- I did get into a program  But -- I did hear from one of my professors that some schools, primarily ivy, won't even look at applications that are below 99th percentile on the GRE. So that was a bummer, because my top choice didn't even look at my application at all because of my GRE scores (my prof was in contact with the POI at the school I was looking at, and heard it straight from him). Soo... all that to say, clearly my GRE scores didn't prevent me from getting into a program -- BUT they did prevent me from even getting looked at in certain programs. Take those GREs seriously!  

FWIW to lurkers: I had very similar scores and got into Duke PhD. 166 V, 159Q, and 5AW.

[ibnbattuta]

On March 23, 2016 at 6:50 PM, gidadu said:

Just wanted to provide an update -- I did get into a program  But -- I did hear from one of my professors that some schools, primarily ivy, won't even look at applications that are below 99th percentile on the GRE. So that was a bummer, because my top choice didn't even look at my application at all because of my GRE scores (my prof was in contact with the POI at the school I was looking at, and heard it straight from him). Soo... all that to say, clearly my GRE scores didn't prevent me from getting into a program -- BUT they did prevent me from even getting looked at in certain programs. Take those GREs seriously!  

It depends on your program, but I know UChicago has an unstated cutoff at 90th percentile on verbal.  Also, I was admitted to UPenn with both writing and verbal percentiles below the 99th percentile (167 verbal, 149 quant (the math struggle is real), and 5.5 writing). 

[AghaDehlawi]

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Edited May 13, 2016 by PersonaNonGrata
wrong thread