Should I retake GRE?

[sunny5227]

Hi! I am new here so I apologize for any discrepancies in my post. But I am debating on whether or not it would be worth it to re-take the GRE before I apply for the 2017 season. My undergrad GPA was a 3.2 in art history, and my postbacc (2nd bachelor's) GPA is a 3.9. I need to take a year off to earn money before graduate school, so I have been working as an ESL tutor, as well as a nanny for a child with autism and have also earned certification in infant sign language (although haven't been successful in finding actual work yet). I shadowed my aunt in her school-based SLP setting as well as shadowed a local hospital's SLP. I was a note-taker for students with disabilities in my undergrad career and currently volunteer at an aphasia center and work as a volunteer in the Child Life dept of my local hospital. My GRE scores are a 147 Q, 154 V, and 4.5 AW. I know they say if it's over 300 it's okay, and I'm at 301, but I feel like I constantly see scores on here that are higher. I am very busy and very tight on cash so I really do not want to re-take if I don't have to. I was kind of hoping my extracurriculars would make up for the low score, but I understand that's not likely.

Thank you so much for your help! I've lurked these forums for months and they've always been a great help to me. 

[slporbust2016]

Have you looked at the scores for the schools that you're interested in specific?

Personally, I'd either use all of the prep stuff that i could find at the library or Magoosh (my preference) for a couple of months with a commitment to work on it a few hours a week. Then I'd take some practice tests and see if there was an improvement and make the decision then. It's one of the only things that you can dramatically change with some effort. Magoosh is $100 and retaking it is another $200. It's a lot less than a second round of application fees. 

[sunny5227]

I have, my top choices are Northern Colorado, Montclair/(any NJ school, really), UT-Dallas, or East Stroudsburg. It's just confusing because on Edfind the scores seem way lower than what they actually look for/such a wide gap. Example: UT Dallas: has a V range of 139-170 and a Q range of 141-161. 

[SLPgradstudent]

Welcome @sunny5227!  Glad to have you here.

It can be tricky with EdFind, because you don't know if a low verbal was helped by a higher quant, or a low GRE was helped by a stellar GPA.  You don't know the combined GRE scores of any of the candidates.

If I were you, I think I would retake it.  I know that's probably not what you were hoping to hear, but getting into graduate school is so competitive.  Generally GPA's are high, GREs are high, and even some students who are strong in both areas get rejections.  Do you know what your cumulative GPA is?  Many schools seem to have  a 3.5 cutoff.  If one area of your app is iffy, you'll want to make sure every other area of your application is as strong as possible.  Since, you've done a great job getting your GPA up with your post-bacc classes, now it's time to focus on getting your GRE stronger.  You have time to study and improve your performance, and even though $200 to retake seems like a lot, it will save you money when you go to apply for schools (you don't have to cast as wide of a net).  If your lucky, it may help you get funding too!

Best of luck!

P.S. I considered going into child-life before I found speech pathology.  That's another great field!

[Jolie717]

I have found that you can find what is likely to be more accurate GREs and GPAs on the college program websites.  For example, I found this on the UT Dallas website in the FAQs:

Although there is no specific GPA or GRE cutoff for admission, most admitted students have an overall  GPA of at least 3.6 and a GRE of 305 or higher. The median GRE score for students entering the program in Fall '15 was 314 and the median overall GPA was 3.8.

[PinkSpeech]

If it were me, I would retake it. What did you use to study for it the first time? Magoosh has some apps that are great and you can study when you're stuck in line somewhere or any other little bits of free time. I also made flashcards with all the math formulas and carried those around with me - they have those little ones on a key ring if you know what I'm talking about. You can check on the website to see what areas and levels of the exam you struggled on. I found that really helpful when I retook it as it acclimated me to the way the test worked better (i.e. my second quantitative section was almost all 4 and 5 level questions, I freaked that I was doing terrible because the questions were hard and I was off my game for the rest of the test). 

[sunny5227]

I just signed up for Magoosh. They had a great sale that just ended today. Thanks for the advice!

[thespeechblog.com]

10 minutes ago, sunny5227 said:

I just signed up for Magoosh. They had a great sale that just ended today. Thanks for the advice!

I reeallly liked using Magoosh for my prep - and I think it helped a lot too. I'm planning a blog post on how I think you can get the most out of it - I'll try to share when I'm finished Happy studying!