730 V- 540 Q... good enough??

[melusine]

So i just took the dreaded thing yesterday. verbal was quite easy, although i screwed up on a couple of questions (actually realized it right when i clicked 'confirm').. so could have been better. could have been worse, too.

math is abysmal. as expected but I did work my bum off for it for the last three months. i guess 540 is just what my mathematically-addled brain is capable of.

now, i'm applying for a PHD in complit at very selective programs (yale, princeton, etc..)

I'm also an international student and English is my 3rd language, not that that will cut me any slack in math. I just suck at it, simple as that.

So my question is, as many other posters' on this forum: what do you think??

Are my Gre scores high enough to get past the elusive "cut off score" everybody keeps mentioning. I keep seeing the number "600", which makes me nervous since my math is below..

[jlee306]

I am soooooooo jealous of your score; I just took the stupid thing again for the 2nd time, today. I am getting really frustrated with the stupid GRE!!! I study and study and it is just not paying off. I would really hate to not be accepted into grad school just because of my GRE scores! I think your scores are awesome, but they may be because my scores are terrible. I don't really know that much about what PhD programs want because I am trying to get into a Specialist program. Good luck with everything!

[JennyFieldsOriginal]

I'd say that's definitely good enough. I'm in English but I've been told that this holds for comp lit as well: they literally could care less about your math scores. The admissions committee doesn't even really look at them. The only way they could help you is in university wide fellowship competitions, but that score seems to cut the mustard from what I know. A professor of mine said if you have a low GRE score (which you don't) they look at the combined and if they see that math pulled it down they ignore it. Just like if your GPA is on lower than it could be, but that's because you failed Calculus your freshman year or something silly. Honestly, I wouldn't really sweat it too much. Your math score is also well above 500, so you're not raising any major red flags.