Interpretation of GRE scores of Intl. students

[Lise]

I'm a Belgian student and I'm applying for a MA/PhD in Comparative Literature. I have taken the GRE and TOEFL and now I'm wondering if anybody of you knows how graduate schools treat GRE scores of non-native speakers.

My scores are: TOEFL iBT 109

GRE V 540/ Q 530/ A 4.5

I do realise that my GRE score is average (according to the ETS statistics, the score is the average for a student pursuing literature grad study) but I can't help but thinking that it would be quite unfair to treat my score the same as that of a native speaker.

Any thoughts on this matter?

[JohnBom]

I'm a Belgian student and I'm applying for a MA/PhD in Comparative Literature. I have taken the GRE and TOEFL and now I'm wondering if anybody of you knows how graduate schools treat GRE scores of non-native speakers.

My scores are: TOEFL iBT 109

GRE V 540/ Q 530/ A 4.5

I do realise that my GRE score is average (according to the ETS statistics, the score is the average for a student pursuing literature grad study) but I can't help but thinking that it would be quite unfair to treat my score the same as that of a native speaker.

Any thoughts on this matter?

Hi Lise,

I am an international student as well. I spent a lot of time worrying about the gre's. I am still trying to figure out how they are going to factor in to my application.

While I was initially quite bitter about the non-native speaker disadvantage, especially in the verbal section, I have come to rationalize it. I believe that it is not unreasonable of a university to expect their international students to get a score quite as good as the domestic students. After all, being a doctoral student in the US, you will mainly compete with domestic students. Especially in your discipline it is essential to prove that you are equally comfortable with English as your native speaking classmates.

Looking at the scores and the schools you have listed, I think most of them would expect at least 600V from their ph.d applicants. Harvard probably 700. That said, there are ways you can compensate for your average scores by making other parts of your application stand out.

[wolfentinus]

I'm actually more worried about Quant than Verbal. My professor mentioned the graduate schools often take the nationality into account, so according to her, my Quant score is actually pretty low for an Asian applicant (i have 710Q).

Not sure how true her words are though.

[ridgey]

I have seen some department websites say that for non-native speaker internationals a good TOEFL can compensate for a very low GRE verbal. I think, though, that they only do this was very poor GRE verbals. A middling verbal suggests that it's not your grasp of English that's the problem.

I've never heard of anywhere making similar allowances for the quant, though different disciplines obviously place different degrees of emphasis on each section.

The GRE is ridiculous in my opinion, but I'll spare you my rant! Anyway, you're above the common 1000 minimum. Only the very top schools will bin your application on the basis of that GRE alone. Your problem is that you don't have a score that might make up for deficiencies elsewhere in your application, such as GPA.

If you think you could improve your score significantly (~100 in each section) and you have the time, then you could retake it. I generally think though that unless a GRE score is REALLY bad it is almost always a better use of time to work on the SoP or writing sample than study to retake the GRE.

[melusine]

Hi Lise!

I'm also a foreigner (Russian but grew up in France) applying to comp lit.. And one of my schools is also Harvard!

Anyways, i have good news for all of us fellow comp liters..

This past month, before taking the gre, i was really nervous about what grades i might get, so i emailed pretty much all my schools asking them what their policy for non-native english speakers was.

.... And I got an overwhelmingly consistent response of either A-The Gre is merely number 6 or 7 in our list of priorities when considering a candidate's app, some great ppl are admitted with v low GRE..., B- For a non-native speaker, anything over 600 is considered good. sometimes a bit below is even fine too. C-no one gives a caca d'oie about the math. REALLY.

I have the specific answers of every school, if anyone's interested, just pm me!

best of luck