<p>Hi!</p>
<p>I'm a rising senior at one of the ivies and I plan to apply for a master's or phd in industrial engineering or operations research. My gpa is around 3.93 and I just took my first GRE last month. I got 780 for verbal and 800 for math. I'm an international student. The scores look great to me until i got my writing score today. It's a 3.5! I'm pretty shocked.</p>
<p>I wonder if I should retake the exam, request a rescoring or just stay with it? I basically do not want to study for it anymore as I want to focus on research but, if it will be a big obstacle preventing me from getting into top schools like MIT, Stanford, or Columbia, I need to do something.</p>
<p>Thank you in advance! :)</p>
<p>No one will care about that AW score.</p>
<p>Anyone with rescoring experience?</p>
<p>you’re wasting your time with this. your scores, including AW, gpa, and college all point to acceptance into top programs. enjoy your performance and drop this rescoring nonsense.</p>
<p>If you had searched for any past posts on this topic, you will see that everyone agrees: AW score does not matter. I would worry more about your lack of initiative, evidenced by your failure to search for the many times this exact question has been asked before, and your lack of common sense, in thinking that you should risk a lower score on important parts of the GRE to improve the unimportant part. Taking the test again will almost certainly lower your verbal score, although you can probably get an 800 Q again.</p>
<p>You can actually skip the parts you do not want to retake. They show up on your report, but it’ll show something like ‘no report’ for those sections.</p>
<p>I’m inclined to agree with the general perception (including that of admissions officers) that the AW is BS. I received a 6 the first time I took the GRE, but only a 4 the 2nd. I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>The math score is more typical but the english score is extremely high (look at percentiles, not absolute score.) I have also heard that the AW score is little regarded, and your high verbal score will remove any trace of doubt. Do not waste your time. The research is tremendously more important.</p>
<p>My advice is to apply to a bunch of top schools and some safety schools just in case.</p>
<p>^ Appropriate suggestion in general, but not because of a 3.5 AW score.</p>