Minimum GRE Scores

[deutsch1997bw]

According to Northwestern's admissions page, the Political Science Department's minimum GRE scores for admission are 160 Verbal and 148 Quantitative. Northwestern's program is ranked #23. Is it reasonable to expect that other similarly ranked programs have similar score requirements? Is Northwestern's relatively low quantitative requirement due to the Political Science Department's more qualitative approach to research?

[Hamb]

Probably a fairly decent assumption, although most programs are going to have higher quant requirements. Really wish I knew what the median scores for accepted students were rather than "minimum" at Northwestern. For comparison sake, average GRE for WashU which is fairly close ranking wise, is 162V, 161 Q, 4.2 AWA. University of Texas says average quant would be 75th-80th percentile (160/161) and verbal 90th-95th (162-165).

I'd say for other programs around that ranking you can assume their quant will be more important and their verbal less important than northwestern, but that combined V+Q would be around 320ish for average GRE scores. Obviously minimum scores will be lower than average too.

[PerfidiousGerontion]

I would not bother with their official information about the cut-off line. It is simply the score at which you stand zero chance and are automatically refused admission without any consideration. From what I have read in other threads, a Q below 160 may conceivably damage your chances, and anything below 156 or so makes admission unlikely.

For a peek at realistic GRE results for admission, I suggest checking the results page. Northwestern has a bunch of recent admits whose Q is 158-159, but not below that. I'd also search for any mentions of Northwestern and other relevant schools in older application cycle threads that tend to outline the profiles of the applicants, including their GRE.

I get the impression that GRE scores are steadily creeping up, unfortunately. You can see it well with Duke - a higher-ranked program, but it looks bleak, and it seems reasonable to assume that the situation is mirrored elsewhere.

Edited November 16, 2017 by PerfidiousGerontion

[guest56436]

One problem with the median/mean GRE score statistics is that those include theory applicants, whose quant score is largely irrelevant but also likely to be much lower than the modal admitted student in the three other fields. 

[Hamb]

Well, theory students also bring up the average verbal scores in all likelihood as well, not just bring the quant down lower.

I think the top end and bottom end weigh each other out a bit though. For instance, Northwestern might accept some high end students that have 170/168 and high GPA's, who ultimately get into and attend a top 5 program instead. They also include international students GRE scores, who naturally tend to have a bit lower verbal/AWA scores. So naturally the average/median scores are not perfect, but IMO they generally do a decent job at highlighting the type of candidate that schools is looking for.

I should note that the Texas way of approaching it, looking at the middle 50%, is by far the best IMO. It removes the outliers who have stellar applications and weak GRE scores, and also removes the highest students who might be more likely to go to a higher ranked school.

[deutsch1997bw]

48 minutes ago, Hamb said:

I should note that the Texas way of approaching it, looking at the middle 50%, is by far the best IMO. It removes the outliers who have stellar applications and weak GRE scores, and also removes the highest students who might be more likely to go to a higher ranked school.

Thanks for the response. Could you elaborate on this a bit more?

[Hamb]

44 minutes ago, deutsch1997bw said:

Thanks for the response. Could you elaborate on this a bit more?

You know what, now that I look at it more I'm remembering the wrong school. There was one school that used the 25th-75th percentile of students accepted in their GRE reporting, but now that I'm looking at the UT program it wasn't them. If I come across which school it was again I'll let you know. Sorry!