<p>So just to go ahead and get it out of the way, I took the GRE yesterday (I am currently in my summer after freshman year in college)- I'm shooting for applying for the top 10 CS Grad schools.</p>
<p>159 V (= 590 old scale = 80th percentile)
163 Q (= 780 old scale= 88th percentile)</p>
<p>Is it worth retaking. Or rather my question is- would these scores keep me out of those schools?</p>
<p>That’s really young to take the GRE. Personally, I would take it later when you’re a Junior in college. Some don’t take it until fall semester of Senior year. Your scores aren’t bad, but I’m not an expert on CS schools.</p>
<p>Your Quant is a bit low for most top school. Should be be at least > 90th percentile, some schools even recommend 95th percentile for their PhD programs. Your verbal score is fine IMHO, CS schools don’t care that much.</p>
<p>Will the current scores keep you out? Probably not keep you out completely, but they may lower your chances.</p>
<p>You should absolutely take it again at the end of Junior year or beginning of Senior year. You can choose to report whichever scores you wish instead of all of them. Your current scores are good but may not get you past the first cut at the most selective programs.</p>
<p>I also agree with what has been said. If you can get 160V+ and 166Q+ (maybe even 167?), you will be in great shape.</p>
<p>780 is “a bit low”? LOL OK</p>
<p>Quant is a bit low for a top tier school in a math based major. My son was advised he needs 95% or above for a top Engineering program (top 10), so I asusume it would be similar for CS.</p>
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<p>Just going to say that certainly wasn’t for my admissions as an engineer to top 10 PhD programs.</p>
<p>90% + I can see…as that is what is recommended by Stanford and MIT…but 95% is ridiculous…especially given the fact that most top programs don’t even care much about the GRE anyway unless it’s really low</p>
<p>Just curious Racinreaver, what was your esperience?</p>
<p>I was in the 80-85 percentile range for all three of my scores and was able to get into a number of top 10 programs. Had done a bit of research and was the third author published in a journal that hardly gets any citations. I think my recommendations were top notch, though.</p>
<p>I do agree a very high score should be expected on the math section, and I should have done better than I did. I didn’t do any studying for the math section and know I got a question or two wrong on geometry. Verbal section, from what I saw of my friends, hardly matters if you’re a native English speaker.</p>
<p>Wow, that is so different than what my son is hearing - he is trying to get a free BME Ph.D. program, so maybe that’s why. Nontheless shooting for 95% made him prepare more and probably do better than he would have otherwise. It is good to know that the 95% is not true in your experience.</p>
<p>Any PhD program he gets into in the top 50 or so should come with a tuition covered plus living expenses. If they admit him without funding, it’s really a non-admit unless he gets an outside fellowship.</p>
<p>He should look at schools where BME might not be ranked as well, but there might be a professor in another department doing BME-related research he’s interested in. One of my friends did something similar (we were Materials Science, and he applied BME instead because the school wasn’t as well ranked for that), and was able to get in to work with a professor in the materials department. Which department you graduate from, in the end, doesn’t matter as much as who you worked for and what sort of work you did.</p>
<p>What’s the difference in scores between Masters and PhD?</p>
<p>You can get into Top5 programs with a 80th percentile score if the other parts of the application demonstrate your ability. Keep in mind what these scores are used for. The GRE is mainly a quick way to assess a candidate’s intelligence. If your application demonstrates that in other ways it can make up for bad GRE (e.g. through excellent recommendations or published papers, competitions, GPA, etc). However, if the other parts of the application do not demonstrate your intelligence, then a low GRE will keep you out, because that’s the only way to admission committee can assess you. Everything is relative, there are no hard cutoffs here (well, unless you do really bad). However,it is generally recommended to be at least > 90th or >95th percentile.</p>
<p>Then what I will do is this- Since I’m only in the summer after my freshman year I have a lot of time. At the end of my sophomore year, I’ll post what my stats look like at the time and see if a retake is worth it- I’ll probably retake it then since I have so much time to do so, anyway.</p>
<p>Be smart. Don’t take it again until later on in Jr year. Also my daughter is in a top 10 CS phd program and got something like 85%Q and 93%V iirc. She was CS/math concentrator so didn’t take the CS GRE, but you’d likely want to prepare and take that too. Again, WAIT TILL LATER.</p>