just one space on application for date of GRE, but date for best essay score is different from date for verbal and math

[doctor-to-be]

Hi everyone. I haven't posted in a while because I hit the GRE preparation and succeeded - I didn't give up and it paid off.  It took me 4 tries (keep in mind I've been out of school for approximately 20 years). The only things left are: waiting for Master's transcript to arrive and waiting for GRE score to be reported. School still has openings for class starting in fall/2016, thus they're accepting applications now. I need help and support on 2 worries: 

1)I scored well on quant and verbal of the second to last GRE, but didn't do well on the essay that day. So in the last GRE that I took, I only took the essays section, which resulted in an excellent score. In the application, there's only 1 space for the date of the GRE. So I e-mailed the admissions department informing them about this situation so that they understand the timing of everything. Thoughts? 

2)Expecting to submit everything by this coming Wed., am I too late? What are the chances of openings (or just 1 for me ) still existing? Would they really reject a candidate solely due to there being no more opening? If I submit my application and there's no more room, how would that get handled? 

Edited April 16, 2016 by doctor-to-be

[preantepenultimate]

7 hours ago, doctor-to-be said:

Hi everyone. I haven't posted in a while because I hit the GRE preparation and succeeded - I didn't give up and it paid off.  It took me 4 tries (keep in mind I've been out of school for approximately 20 years). The only things left are: waiting for Master's transcript to arrive and waiting for GRE score to be reported. School still has openings for class starting in fall/2016, thus they're accepting applications now. I need help and support on 2 worries: 

1)I scored well on quant and verbal of the second to last GRE, but didn't do well on the essay that day. So in the last GRE that I took, I only took the essays section, which resulted in an excellent score. In the application, there's only 1 space for the date of the GRE. So I e-mailed the admissions department informing them about this situation so that they understand the timing of everything. Thoughts? 

2)Expecting to submit everything by this coming Wed., am I too late? What are the chances of openings (or just 1 for me ) still existing? Would they really reject a candidate solely due to there being no more opening? If I submit my application and there's no more room, how would that get handled? 

1. You generally can't pick and choose the best scores from different GRE test sessions; you pick the best overall session and submit that set of scores only. That said, I'd be curious as to how the admissions department will respond to your question... Maybe they will let you submit both?
2. If there are programs accepting applications, then they are probably not full, or at least they have a waitlist (in case accepted students decline to study there, making space for other applicants). I guess it's possible that they are full and are just collecting application fees before automatically rejecting, but I certainly hope that's not the case!

[TakeruK]

ETS do not allow you to submit the best scores from each test separately. Their policies recommend that schools and students consider all three parts (essays, quant and verbal) as one complete set of scores. This means that when you submit your scores, if you want the school to see your good essay score along with your other quant and verbal score, you must submit both sets of scores (and the school will see the zeros/no-scores for the two sections you didn't take).

It's up to each school to decide whether or not they will allow this. I don't think schools should allow this---it's not fair to accept a score where the test taker did not complete the whole exam. But it's not my decision! Now that you have already done this, emailing the school and asking how to proceed was the right thing to do. But for others reading this, if you plan to do this, I would email the school before taking the GRE exam with essay-only so that you don't waste money if a school does not allow this.

For question 2, schools generally will not accept applications if there are no more openings. But if it's a rolling admissions type place and they have not yet closed their applications, if you apply after they have already selected a candidate, they will probably quickly check to make sure you're not more qualified than that candidate and if so, they will probably accept you over the current best-candidate. If not, then they will reject you. If the spot is already filled (the candidate accepted their offer) and there is no more funding to open an extra spot then they will probably reject you (maybe if they realise their mistake, they might refund your application fee but I wouldn't count on it).