How many times should I take the GRE?

[kaydaybug]

Hello,

I am curious how many times I should take the GRE before accepting my scores? I am taking the GRE for the first time this summer but I am wondering how many times most people take the GRE? Thanks

[Need Coffee in an IV]

I've only taken it once and that was enough for me! But my scores met the minimum requirements for one of the programs I applied too. I would look up your programs to see what their range is and shoot for that. I wouldn't take it more than 3 times.

[Apogeee]

I took it once. It's expensive and time consuming, and utterly removed from reality. FWIW, I only took the SAT once too.

 

Wow, not true. I took it twice, because you have to take it every 5 years now. My old scores from 12 years before were no longer valid.

Edited June 5, 2016 by Agrippina
corrected info

[kaydaybug]

Okay, thank you very much!

[marycaryne]

How many times people take the GRE can depend on a couple things:

-Were the scores they got what was needed for their desired school/program?
-Are they applying within the five years they took the GRE? (scores are only valid for 5 years)

I only took it once. My quant score was eh, my verbal score was about average. But my program focuses heavily on the written score, and I got a 5.5 in that. I got accepted into my top choice.

My suggestion is to take a few practice tests. It could help give you an idea of what you may get on test day.

[drivingthoughts]

@kaydaybug Another thing to know is that schools to which you apply get to see how many times you have taken it. For example, if you took it in 2013, 2014, and 2015, but only submitted your 2014 score because it was the best, the school sees: "Kaydaybug took the GRE 3 times - 03/15/2013;  06/12/2014 with scores of 168v/170q/5.5a; and again on 05/30/2015" 

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but if you took it five times or something, it might look suspect. I know someone who took the GRE 6 times (where he got the money, I will never know), eventually got a good score, and did not get into any graduate program. 

 

[kaydaybug]

@drivingthoughts Thank you very much! That is something to keep in mind. I have another questions you may be able to answer. When taking the GRE I have heard that you will not see your scores unless you send these scores to a university. Is this correct? Thanks again for your help.

[Gvh]

On 6/6/2016 at 10:12 PM, drivingthoughts said:

@kaydaybug Another thing to know is that schools to which you apply get to see how many times you have taken it. 

 

I'm not sure this is true. Nowadays you have the option of sending 1 set of scores or many. When I ordered a set of scores for myself, they only provided the info pertinent to that test date. Also note: I took it 5 times, got into a number of PhD programs on my last set of scores. If you are a good candidate, I don't think the number of times you take the GRE is going to stop you from getting admitted. 

[marycaryne]

2 hours ago, kaydaybug said:

I have another questions you may be able to answer. When taking the GRE I have heard that you will not see your scores unless you send these scores to a university. Is this correct? Thanks again for your help.

I have not heard that at all. I'm not sure why they would hide your scores from you unless they were sent to a school. Taking the test doesn't mean you're required to send the scores somewhere (although I am not sure why you'd take it if you had no intention of sending them off). Now it IS a smart idea to have a few schools ready to send them off to right when you take the test because it's free for up to 4 or 5 schools on test day (can't remember exactly how many). Anything extra or not sent at that time will have a charge.

[drivingthoughts]

On June 13, 2016 at 10:18 AM, kaydaybug said:

@drivingthoughts Thank you very much! That is something to keep in mind. I have another questions you may be able to answer. When taking the GRE I have heard that you will not see your scores unless you send these scores to a university. Is this correct? Thanks again for your help.

@kaydaybug Sorry that this is a while in getting back to you, I've been kinda busy. You will see your verbal and quantitative scores immediately after you take the test, you then have the option of sending them to schools if you want to. If you don't, you still get to see your scores and you can send them later. The analytical score takes a couple of weeks to show up. In either case, you can check all of your scores using your ETS/GRE login that you create to schedule a test. 

[drivingthoughts]

On June 13, 2016 at 11:38 AM, Gvh said:

I'm not sure this is true. Nowadays you have the option of sending 1 set of scores or many. When I ordered a set of scores for myself, they only provided the info pertinent to that test date. Also note: I took it 5 times, got into a number of PhD programs on my last set of scores. If you are a good candidate, I don't think the number of times you take the GRE is going to stop you from getting admitted. 

@Gvh It's quite true. I have seen the actual reports that ETS sends to schools (as of 2015 & 2016) - as I said, they only send the score(s) that you submit, but they also tell how many times you took it and on what dates. That aside, I do agree - if you're an overall great candidate and you're scoring over 90%, it probably doesn't matter how many times you took it.

[TakeruK]

With the "new" ETS ScoreSelect option, you get up to three options (I say "new" because this is a few years old now):

1. Send ALL scores. Self-explanatory.

2. Send MOST RECENT score. Sends only the most recent test score. The school does not know how many other times you took the test. They do not know what your previous test scores were.

3. Send ANY score. You can pick and choose any number of test scores to send. For example, if you took it 3 times, you could choose to send attempt #2, or attempts #1 and #2, or all 3, or any combination. Your school will only see the scores that you select, and they won't know if you took the test additional times but did not send the score.

Now, there are two main areas of confusion:

First, you cannot mix and match scores. So, if you took the test twice, April 2015 and January 2016, you cannot for example, send only your Q score from April 2015 and your V score from January 2016. Each test date is a set that is sent together.

Second, when you are using your free score reports on the test day, you only have two options: You can pick ALL or MOST RECENT. You cannot use your score report for the "ANY" option. This means that if you are on your third attempt, and you see that your Q and V scores are lower than e.g. your second attempt, you cannot use your 3rd attempt's free score reports to send the score from the 2nd test only. If you want to use the free score report and also show your best test score, you must use ALL. Otherwise, you can decline to send any scores, give up your free score reports and then pay for additional score reports after the test to send your best score only.

For more information, google search for ETS GRE ScoreSelect.

[Gvh]

1 hour ago, TakeruK said:

With the "new" ETS ScoreSelect option, you get up to three options (I say "new" because this is a few years old now):

2. Send MOST RECENT score. Sends only the most recent test score. The school does not know how many other times you took the test. They do not know what your previous test scores were.

@drivingthoughts: this.