What is a good GRE score?
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
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In recent months a lot of students are asking this question. Since it may be of interest to many of our users, we decided to respond in detail. There are different ways to look at this. Before we proceed please be reminded that GRE is one of many factors and a great GRE score does not guarantee admission or funding.
A simple answer to this question is the applicant should do her best and try to score as much as possible.
Some students are always trying to find out how much GRE is good enough to get into top 10 universities. Let’s assume for a minute that the answer is 600 in verbal and 780 in quant. But nobody is stopping you from scoring 700 in verbal and 800 in quant and increases your chances, rather than apply with minimum qualifications.
It is really important to understand your potential and how much you can possibly score, rather than how much you should score. Once you understand your potential and study for the test, chances are that you will achieve it. For anybody who received an engineering degree from anywhere on the planet, a score of 780 is realistically possible. But most applicants who take GRE do not score 780 plus. Out of the vast number of applicants with science and engineering background, those who really score 780 plus are those who complete the test and mark all right answers except one or two wrong answers. Does it take a mathematical genius to answer 37 out of 37 GRE questions correctly? No. But it does take practice, concentration, timing and accuracy. Not everyone can do this in a stressful environment. It is those who cannot take the stress end up with scores below 750.
To estimate the potential score in verbal is rather complicated. The score gradation is not like quant, and scoring is not as easy. Score of 790 in quantitative section approximately corresponds to 90th percentile, but only 640 in verbal corresponds to 90th percentile. To put it differently 700 is easy to score in quant but very difficult and rare in verbal. If you are not a native speaker of English, but had lifelong studies in English (like students from India/Singapore) 600 is a realistic goal, if you were one of the better students of English at your school and college. Otherwise 550 might be a challenging target. If you started to learn English late in life and are not fully conversational, then after considerable studies, you might be able to score 500A lot depends on the individual but above gives you some idea of what can you possible score. But the best part is even if you score 400 in verbal, admission committee might be able to ignore it based on your country of origin and your other accomplishments.
So the bottom line is, understand the difference in scoring pattern of the two sections, study for the test practice for the speed and give your best shot. At the end of the day applying to US universities is a competitive process and performing very well in the GRE General Test is a good way to keep you ahead of other applicants.
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