Arcanen

Funding packages that include tuition plus a livable stipend are the norm for PhD programs. Honestly, if you get an offer that ISN'T completely funded you should be running for the hills.

I know a couple of people who did this. How did it end? Very badly. I don't know that you necessarily understand how incredibly draining it will be to spend a year or two of your life (however long it takes for the masters) lying to everyone you talk to, live, study and research with. Psychologically, it will destroy you. You also shouldn't underestimate how "burned bridges with faculty at the university" will follow you around. Know what happens when you're interviewing for jobs? Those faculty members are called. Why do you want to go to grad school anyway? Is it to further your career? If so, won't the masters ultimately pay for itself (in increased future income) as it does in many STEM fields? If you absolutely need to get the education without the debt, consider going abroad and studying somewhere that won't cost you much (e.g. lots of European countries). You're basically asking for trouble with this thread btw. PhD admissions are tough, and taking up a spot when you are certain you only want the MS is all sorts of messed up.

Not in engineering. Many top engineering applicants are international, and getting high AW scores with English as a second language is difficult. The only "cut-off" for the AW are scores that show that your English really isn't at the level required to successfully complete the program (e.g. AW<2.5) I disagree. Your Q score is good, which is all that really matters for engineering programs. Your verbal and AW are both at or above the expected level for engineers also. Given this, retaking could "hurt" since you're spending time on something for little to no benefit given that your scores are past any cutoffs, which detracts from the time you can devote to other aspects of your application. It would be different if your scores were catastrophic (i.e. 157 was the Q score), but it's not the case here.

You didn't specify which scores were for which component. If you listed as V/Q/AW, no need to retake. If it's Q/V/AW, you absolutely need to retake. Assuming the latter: Different schools use the GRE in different ways, but you'll get automatically cut from a bunch of schools on the basis of your GRE before the rest of your application is read (because adcoms typically don't want to read 1000 applications, 3000 letters of recommendation, 1000 personal statements etc, they'll often sort by numbers e.g. GPA and GRE and cull an enormous proportion of the applicants before they are even truly considered). It's certainly possible to get into good programs with poor GRE scores, if those schools don't use a GRE cutoff, don't place much emphasis on the GRE and you are otherwise an exceptional candidate. But that's a very specific set of circumstances that won't occur in many places, and so you shouldn't let yourself by falsely reassured by tales of how this and that person got into a good school despite their scores. Remember, grad school admissions are tough, low single digit acceptance rate tough (my doctoral program had a 3% acceptance rate for example). The vast majority of people get rejected from all the top schools they apply to. A 157 quant score? Very likely to get your applications to top engineering programs binned. If the 157/169/4 is V/Q/AW, you're good to go. You'll pass any GRE "cutoffs" and your application will be valued on its other merits.

Given the schools in your sig that you're applying to, you're taking a rather large risk. It's true, the importance of the GRE varies drastically from department to department, school to school, and discipline to discipline. Some schools don't even bother looking at it (which is the best approach IMO, the GRE is rubbish), but some schools unfortunately will use it as a cutoff. This is more likely the more applicants a program gets (e.g. 5 people on a committee will not read through 500 full applications; they'll use GPA and GRE to cut down the pile to a more manageable size). Given that most of the schools you're applying to seem to be Ivies or other top schools that would attract tons of applicants, you run a significant risk of being rejected from many of your schools before your full application is read. However, it's not going to be the difference between 40th and 29th percentiles in the Q that'll make the difference. The common wisdom is that high GREs won't get you into a program, but low GREs will keep you out. Unfortunately, both 40th and 29th percentiles aren't strong scores. A better way to look at this is that if a 40th percentile score wouldn't get you rejected, neither would a 29th percentile, because it indicates they aren't taking the GRE into consideration. So there's no real reason to worry about the score percentiles changing, it won't affect you as such. That said, you should take the GRE again if possible. I'd normally completely agree that the GRE is easily the least important part of an application and that you should focus on other aspects. The issue is that your current score will absolutely get you wiped out from a decent proportion of the schools by you're applying to by administrative staff (e.g. not the actual admissions committees) before your application reaches the full consideration stage. If you don't want to take it again, I wish you the best of luck and hope some of the schools don't consider the GRE at all.

If you get discouraged hanging out with really smart people, doctoral programs are not for you.

Never accept an unfunded PhD. It was originally funded and you were accepted, so you must be a decent candidate. Given this, you would be so so much better off applying again next year to other funded programs and going with them. If you take an unfunded offer now, you'll probably never suddenly gain funding through that program. You'll accumulate massive amounts of debt and probably drop out anyway.

I suspect you'll find your answer once you look at the programs you're applying to...

Yeah, no. A very low score on the AW is troubling, but not because it says you're unable to generate and dissect arguments (the marking is too subjective to really allow for this distinction); it's because a very low score on the AW indicates your English is poor.

I did electrical engineering as an undergrad and got into the top financial math programs (Columbia, Princeton and Stanford) without having done any financial math courses (or relevant financial industry experience). I think it is pretty standard judging from my success rate (3/6), the admissions websites of these programs, and the discussions I had with professors and other students in these programs. In terms of previous coursework, having the fundamental skills in mathematics, modelling and programming (which, fortunately for me, is practically what electrical engineering is) is much more important than having previous finance knowledge (or even mathematical finance itself; experience in real analysis for example is more important than a course on pricing derivatives). In fact, maths/programming was often listed as a prerequisite for the programs I applied to wheras finance knowledge was not. So I don't necessarily think it's a smart idea to throw your whole degree out of sequence in order to do the courses you think are relevant because you're probably wrong. I think it might be because skills are harder to pick up later on than knowledge. The fundamental maths and CS skills are harder to pick up later on than the financial theory that is reducible to the maths (and simple memorisation). Doing more classes on those fundamental skills is more important than simplified undergrad financial math classes (where the simplification occurs because the students don't necessarily have the necessary mathematical chops to do legit financial maths courses). Sure though, it's important to show that you're interested in mathematical finance, but the way to do this is to do finance topics in your maths and cs project classes whenever you have the freedom to do so. This is particular true if you do some sort of honours/undergrad thesis.

I looked up UVa's (my alma matter ~WAHOOWA~) history program and checked their GRE averages before my last post, you're 5 percentile points below the verbal average (they are 95th percentile, you're 90th)and like 30 percentile points below the quant average (they are 60th percentile, you're 30th). I admit I didn't look up your other schools, but considering you said it's one of your two top choices I stand by my suggestion to retake. With regard to the GPA comment, I'm specifically talking with respect to graduate school admissions. I fully understand that you're proud of your achievement and all you did during your degree (and congratulations to you), but grad schools will not give the slightest hoot about your sporting or other extracurriculars. A 3.7 is pretty average for grad school. If it's average, it isn't "particularly strong". With a GPA that doesn't stand out, you at least want to try to stand out in the other quantitative measurement used in the admissions process, the GRE. You currently don't, so retake.

No one cares about your AW. The marking is incredibly subjective and is marked by drunk grad students throwing darts at a dartboard (English good => random score between 4 and 6, English bad => random score between 1 and 3.5). That said, you should probably take the GRE again since you could be written off because of your other scores. The GRE is easily the least important part of your application, but your scores are definitely at or below the point where you should worry about being at "throw out before giving proper consideration" level. Given that your GPA isn't particularly strong, you want to at least meet the verbal average for your programs. While I'm sure you wouldn't use any math skills (not that the GRE even really tests such) in your program, a 29th percentile score isn't exactly encouraging either. My intention isn't to be mean, graduate admissions are competitive. You need to do all you can not to give adcoms an excuse to throw you out.

Justified of course. Practically every journal article, book (academic and non-academic) etc I've ever read is justified (really, pick a random book off your shelf and take a look). As such I can't even look at aligned text without recoiling at the sense of amateurism. When it's so clear what the accepted standard for published work is, I can't imagine ever submitting something with aligned text considering how unprofessional it looks. If the text spacing bothers you (which is more prominent the thinner/more columns you have as the word processor has less to play with), you should use LaTeX or at the very least some other program that will hyphenate if spacing gets too obnoxious.

Most undergrads admitted directly into PhD programs don't have published papers (though they typically have a lot of research experience). You have decent stats and research experience, so you're in with a chance (no one on this website or any other can tell you what that chance is). If you're that worried, just apply for some PhD programs that consider you for the masters as a fallback (e.g. if you fail to get admission into the PhD program, you get considered for the masters program automatically as part of the same application).

^^^^^ Some people also win the lottery. Doesn't make buying a lottery ticket a sound financial decision.