GPA and GRE

[tbphilstudent]

Hi there,

 

I'm posting to check the competitiveness of some of my stats for applying to only PhD programs this upcoming winter (2018). I'm currently half way through my Masters in philosophy.

 

Undergrad:

Major GPA: 3.91 Cumulative GPA: 3.76

Masters:

Cumulative (currently): 3.73

GRE (Taken Fall 2015):

VR: 159/83

QR: 152/47

AW:5.5/98

 

AOI: Continental Philosophy, Particualrly French, Poststructuralism, Marxism, History of Economic Thought, Political Theology, History of Secularism

 

What are your thoughts?

[rphilos]

What kind of places are you aiming for? To be competitive at PGR-ranked PhD programs I think you would need to significantly raise your V and Q GRE scores.

[tbphilstudent]

8 hours ago, rphilos said:

What kind of places are you aiming for? To be competitive at PGR-ranked PhD programs I think you would need to significantly raise your V and Q GRE scores.

At the moment, UCSC (History of Consciousness), Oregon, Duquesne, Villanova, Boston College, The New School, looking for other continental philosophy programs. Thanks for the feedback

[be.]

GPA and GRE are not great indicators of one's admission prospects.  That said, your verbal score may hurt you slightly, and it would be worthwhile to improve your grad GPA. Nonetheless, contrary to the above comment, you still have a reasonable chance of admission to a PGR-ranked program, provided the other parts of your application are strong.

Edited July 26, 2017 by be.

[cowgirlsdontcry]

Although different fields, both of our paths are in humanities. You are going to need a higher GRE verbal score in any of the humanities. I came from a Southern Region Tier 1 university (which is excellent for a small university--MA English program rated #6 online nationally), but knew I had to be at the top of my game to be admitted anywhere. I had GPAs of UG-3.82 and MA 4.0, followed with a GRE verbal of 163 (92%), excellent LORs (the programs I was admitted to said they were outstanding) and WS/SOP that were critiqued by the three recommending professors. I applied to 9 programs, was admitted to two, waitlisted at two, and rejected at five. Your AW score is excellent, so no worries there, just need to get that verbal into the 90s.

[rphilos]

15 hours ago, be. said:

GPA and GRE are not great indicators of one's admission prospects.  That said, your verbal score may hurt you slightly, and it would be worthwhile to improve your grad GPA. Nonetheless, contrary to the above comment, you still have a reasonable chance of admission to a PGR-ranked program, provided the other parts of your application are strong.

be., is your field philosophy? It's just not true that someone has a "reasonable chance of admission to a PGR-ranked program" with V159/Q152, or that GPA isn't a "great indicator[] of one's admission prospects." Some programs publish the average GRE scores of admitted PhD students. Even the lower-ranked PGR programs have average V scores in the 167-168 range, and Q scores much higher than 152. tbphilstudent deserves to know that before he/she spends 3 months working on applications and $1,000 on application fees.

[hj2012]

On 7/25/2017 at 11:30 AM, tbphilstudent said:

At the moment, UCSC (History of Consciousness), Oregon, Duquesne, Villanova, Boston College, The New School, looking for other continental philosophy programs. Thanks for the feedback

If you're willing to go interdisciplinary (and depending on your specific research project/intellectual trajectory), you might consider Berkeley Rhetoric, Johns Hopkins Humanities, and Chicago's Committee on Social Thought.

And while I'm not a philosopher, I'd also consider retaking the GRE to raise the V score.

[tbphilstudent]

15 minutes ago, hj2012 said:

If you're willing to go interdisciplinary (and depending on your specific research project/intellectual trajectory), you might consider Berkeley Rhetoric, Johns Hopkins Humanities, and Chicago's Committee on Social Thought.

And while I'm not a philosopher, I'd also consider retaking the GRE to raise the V score.

 

Thank you for the feedback. I will look into these programs.

[be.]

13 hours ago, rphilos said:

be., is your field philosophy? It's just not true that someone has a "reasonable chance of admission to a PGR-ranked program" with V159/Q152, or that GPA isn't a "great indicator[] of one's admission prospects." Some programs publish the average GRE scores of admitted PhD students. Even the lower-ranked PGR programs have average V scores in the 167-168 range, and Q scores much higher than 152. tbphilstudent deserves to know that before he/she spends 3 months working on applications and $1,000 on application fees.

Take a look at the admissions results page. There are plenty of people who had worse GRE scores than the OP, and yet were admitted to PGR-ranked programs. Moreover, it's widely agreed on this forum that the GRE is the least important part of one's application -- far less important than one's writing sample and letters of recommendation. (This is also the view of every professor to whom I've talked -- serveral of whom are at top-15 programs). And finally, the OP's GPA is not terrible. Hence, s/he has a reasonable shot at acceptance to a PGR-ranked program, provided the other elements of her/his application are strong.

 

 

Edited July 28, 2017 by be.

[rphilos]

6 hours ago, be. said:

Take a look at the admissions results page. There are plenty of people who had worse GRE scores than the OP, and yet were admitted to PGR-ranked programs.

What "admissions results page" are you talking about? The evidence available on the department websites suggests that the vast majority of students admitted to philosophy PhD programs at PGR-ranked departments have verbal GRE scores in at least the mid 160s, and the average is close to 170.

6 hours ago, be. said:

it's widely agreed on this forum that the GRE is the least important part of one's application

Maybe that just reflects wishful thinking on this forum. If GREs were as unimportant as you say, I don't think the average scores of successful applicants would be so high.

[be.]

8 hours ago, rphilos said:

What "admissions results page" are you talking about? The evidence available on the department websites suggests that the vast majority of students admitted to philosophy PhD programs at PGR-ranked departments have verbal GRE scores in at least the mid 160s, and the average is close to 170.

Maybe that just reflects wishful thinking on this forum. If GREs were as unimportant as you say, I don't think the average scores of successful applicants would be so high.

Here you are: http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/

Also, here is the section of Eric Schwitzgebel's guide that discusses the GRE: http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2007/10/applying-to-philosophy-phd-programs_16.html

To be sure, it helps to have good GRE scores. But having good GRE scores is nether necessary nor sufficient for admission. Less-than-great GRE scores can be outweighed by other, more important parts of the application, especially the writing sample. Thus, I would encourage the OP, if s/he is indeed set on undertaking graduate study in philosophy, to focus on writing an excellent sample. If s/he can do so, s/he will have a shot.

[Glasperlenspieler]

8 hours ago, rphilos said:

What "admissions results page" are you talking about? The evidence available on the department websites suggests that the vast majority of students admitted to philosophy PhD programs at PGR-ranked departments have verbal GRE scores in at least the mid 160s, and the average is close to 170.

Of what I could quickly find online:

University of California, Riverside (PGR Rank 28): "During the last few years, average GRE scores (verbal and quantitative combined) for students admitted to the Ph.D. program have been in the range of 310 to 330 (1250-1500 by the old scale). (If a student’s combined scores are below 300 (1100), their chances of being admitted are minimal unless there is a special explanation, for example, that the student is not a native speaker of English). Typically a score below 310 (or 1250) is a strike against an applicant, whereas a score above 325 (or 1450) is a bonus." http://philosophy.ucr.edu/about-the-graduate-program/223-2/

Notre Dame (PGR Rank 17):  "There is no automatic cut-off based on GRE scores, but average scores for students admitted recently are: 93rd percentile in verbal; 84th percentile in quantitative; and 87th percentile in analytic." http://philosophy.nd.edu/graduate-program/admissions-and-financial-support/

University of Michigan (PGR Rank 4): No GRE required. http://lsa.umich.edu/philosophy/graduates/prospective-students/admissions-faq.html

Rutgers (PGR Rank 2): "On average GRE scores tend to be very high, around 96% or above, and GPAs tend to be 3.7 or above. But we have accepted students with GREs and GPAs that are significantly lower when other factors are taken into account. You should not be discouraged from applying solely on the grounds that your GREs or GPA is below these markers." http://philosophy.rutgers.edu/graduate-admissions

 

Many programs don't list this info on their sites, but I also didn't see any data too far off from this. I think the moral is that perfect GRE scores won't get you in if you don't have a writing sample and proposed research interests that get the faculty excited. As long as your GRE isn't alarmingly low, however, it will really come down to the other aspects of you application. What counts as alarmingly low, of course, may depend somewhat on the program in question. The key is to make sure that your GRE and GPA are high enough to guarantee that your file gets a close look. My suspicion is that once your verbal is at the 90th percentile or so and your other scores aren't too low, you're up against the law of diminishing returns and your efforts are best focused elsewhere. 

To be clear, this is not meant to give a rosy, "everything will be fine" outlook on graduate admissions. The odds of getting in to a top PhD program are astronomically low, but to think that you can predict this based on the numerical components of the application is a rabbit hole. 

 

 

[dthat]

14 hours ago, rphilos said:

If GREs were as unimportant as you say, I don't think the average scores of successful applicants would be so high.

This could also be explained by there being a very significant correlation between high GRE scores and a strong writing sample, letters of recommendation, and GPA, which wouldn't be at all surprising. This is a straightforward case of correlation (between high GRE scores and success in admissions) not equalling causation.

[rphilos]

3 hours ago, dthat said:

This could also be explained by there being a very significant correlation between high GRE scores and a strong writing sample, letters of recommendation, and GPA, which wouldn't be at all surprising. This is a straightforward case of correlation (between high GRE scores and success in admissions) not equalling causation.

Agreed. According to the Grad Cafe data, people who get into competitive programs that don't require GREs (e.g., Oxford) tend to have very high scores anyway. But I think that admissions committees for competitive programs that do require GREs will be very cautious about accepting someone who did poorly even if other aspects of their application seem good. In reality, the vast majority of people with low GREs probably don't have good writing samples or high GPAs (or their GPAs are high only if they went to a noncompetitive college).

[évariste]

On 7/27/2017 at 3:32 AM, rphilos said:

be., is your field philosophy? It's just not true that someone has a "reasonable chance of admission to a PGR-ranked program" with V159/Q152, or that GPA isn't a "great indicator[] of one's admission prospects." Some programs publish the average GRE scores of admitted PhD students. Even the lower-ranked PGR programs have average V scores in the 167-168 range, and Q scores much higher than 152. tbphilstudent deserves to know that before he/she spends 3 months working on applications and $1,000 on application fees.

Yikes, this is frightening.  I just took the GRE this afternoon, and scored V170/Q165, which sounds okay for philosophy except I'm a logician.  Would the 89th percentile cut it for PGR programs (dreaming really hard about e.g. MIT)?  I probably didn't do spectacularly on AW--if I had to guess, I'd estimate a 4 or 4.5; I am really terrible at writing under time pressure.  All input appreciated; I would have to schedule another test date, like, right now, because I'm going abroad September 13...

[goldenstardust11]

12 minutes ago, évariste said:

Yikes, this is frightening.  I just took the GRE this afternoon, and scored V170/Q165, which sounds okay for philosophy except I'm a logician.  Would the 89th percentile cut it for PGR programs (dreaming really hard about e.g. MIT)?  I probably didn't do spectacularly on AW--if I had to guess, I'd estimate a 4 or 4.5; I am really terrible at writing under time pressure.  All input appreciated; I would have to schedule another test date, like, right now, because I'm going abroad September 13...

Lol you have -amazing- gre scores for Q & V. I didn't apply to PGR schools (my interests are in continental - history of philosophy), but my quantitative was 156 and I did fine. I can't imagine a 165 will hurt you, even in the highly competitive ranked programs, GRE scores (while important insofar as everything is important) are not the make-or-break aspect of your package, and your GRE scores are more than good enough not to hurt you, as far as I know. 

Good luck! And congrats on a great score

Oh and the AW pretty much doesn't matter as long as you don't score horribly atrociously. If you get a 4.5, you should be totally fine as long as your sample is killer. 

[rphilos]

On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 10:43 AM, évariste said:

Yikes, this is frightening.  I just took the GRE this afternoon, and scored V170/Q165, which sounds okay for philosophy except I'm a logician.  Would the 89th percentile cut it for PGR programs (dreaming really hard about e.g. MIT)?  I probably didn't do spectacularly on AW--if I had to guess, I'd estimate a 4 or 4.5; I am really terrible at writing under time pressure.  All input appreciated; I would have to schedule another test date, like, right now, because I'm going abroad September 13...

It's a difficult call. Your GRE scores are obviously in the right range for top philosophy programs, including MIT. For anyone but a logician there would be no reason to think about retaking. Some logic programs might expect Q a few points higher. I get the impression that the Group in Logic and Methodology of Science at Berkeley, for example, cares about your math-related GRE scores. But I would think that your results are good enough for admissions committees to take your application seriously. If your other credentials demonstrate your competence in math and logic, will retaking the test and doing a little better really make a difference? Maybe it would be worth retaking the test only if it's not going to take time away from other activities that would help your chances of admission. If you do take it again you can be relaxed, knowing that even if you mess up you have perfectly fine backup scores.

[anonnn123]

On 8/10/2017 at 2:43 AM, évariste said:

Yikes, this is frightening.  I just took the GRE this afternoon, and scored V170/Q165, which sounds okay for philosophy except I'm a logician.  Would the 89th percentile cut it for PGR programs (dreaming really hard about e.g. MIT)?  I probably didn't do spectacularly on AW--if I had to guess, I'd estimate a 4 or 4.5; I am really terrible at writing under time pressure.  All input appreciated; I would have to schedule another test date, like, right now, because I'm going abroad September 13...

I wouldn't bother. People on the admission committee probably understand that time constraints and so on are factors and won't infer from your scores that you're not fit to do logic. Of course, as has been mentioned, it might matter if you're applying to logic programs like Berkeley's but for philosophy programs, I don't think it's worth retaking the GRE. 

[Duns Eith]

Let's also not take the GRE more seriously than the programs themselves. It doesn't hurt to take a note on a spreadsheet for every program whether they give the GRE weight, and if so in what way (and how much). Ask grad admissions directors.