Taking GRE again and again

[Bobsir]

Has anyone taken the GRE multiple times? Is there any harm in retaking it over and over? I can't decide if I should keep taking it

[drivingthoughts]

@Bobsir Well, I took it 3 times total. Each time only marginally improved my grade, but the effort paid off and finally earned me a slot in the +91% club that you have to be in to clear the fence at many institutions. That said:

ETS says that you can submit only the score you want, or all of your scores, or select scores - but no matter what you send, they do tell your institution how many times you've taken it (I don't see that being a problem unless you've taken it like 5 times or something). Also, a handful of apps that I completed let you pick your high score per field across your GREs (in such case, I used two sets of scores to get the highest in each category).

Whatever your decision, I wish you the best.

[jpiccolo]

I think the only harm is the cost and preparation to take it multiple times. I took it twice to get the scores I wanted. I haven't heard that ETS informs schools how many times you've taken it. But when you are sitting there at the computer choosing scores you don't have the option to choose your verbal score from attempt #1 and math score from attempt #3. It's all from one or the other. The applications might allow you to input your own scores but you'd have to send the scores from both times to the school which is $$. 

Otherwise take a look at the schools you want to apply to and compare your scores with the averages of accepted applicants. Ideally you want to be at least above 150 in each and a 4.0 minimum for writing. Verbal is most important for SLP schools so work hard on that one. And writing as well since our profession is writing heavy. Math is less important usually but don't ignore it completely. If the rest of your app is solid I wouldn't try to shoot for 160s in each. Again, $$$.

[Speechforever]

Sorry drivingthoughts, I don't think that is true, when you said "ETS says that you can submit only the score you want, or all of your scores, or select scores - but no matter what you send, they do tell your institution how many times you've taken it"

I don't think ETS is allowed to tell the university how many times you have taken it. My understanding is that we will only report the score dates that we want and CSDCAS or the universities will not know how many times we took it.