<p>I took the GRE today and am satisfied with my scores (620V/750Q) but I am worried about it changing when I get my "official" score report. I read somewhere that this does happen. Is it a rare occurrence? Are the changes, if any, usually small? I'm primarily concerned as most of my practice tests placed me in the 550V/650Q ballpark and my unofficial scores turned out to be significantly higher.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I don’t think schools care about the actual number, they care about the percentile you get. A 750 on one day might be a lower percentile on one day than another (within maybe 2-3%), so that’s what schools will look at when they see your score, not the raw number.</p>
<p>Maybe your practice tests were more difficult than the actual exam?</p>
<p>My real scores were exactly my unofficial scores. I get the feeling they’re almost always the same.</p>
<p>Apparently the scores you receive in the testing center are estimates based on previous tests’ data (they have a lot of it, so the estimates should be pretty good). So yes, it’s possible the scores will be different, but unless a lot of supergeniuses or dummies decided to take the test at the same time as you and manage to shift the curve in some strange and exciting ways, you probably shouldn’t expect much of a difference (maybe 10 points in either direction). So, well done, you!</p>
<p>Keep in mind that I don’t work for ETS, so I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s accurate.</p>
<p>I recently took mine and they were the same. They probably won’t change, but if they do, likely not more than 10 points.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the schools do not receive the percentiles.</p>
<p>The percentiles are on the score reports… so why wouldn’t they receive them. Besides the fact that they are asked for in every application I’ve seem (biosciences).</p>
<p>Unofficial scores are exactly the same as the official one. You just don’t have the AWA score, but when you are done with the exam, the scores that appear on screen are just the ones you’ll get by mail.
I agree with safetypin, schools probably get percentiles also. And the one thing that can change from one year to the other are percentiles, since it’s a pool of I don’t know how many scores from the past five years (I think I got this info from some prep book, not ETS - the five year info).</p>
<p>"Percentile rankings are provide to you, the test taker, as part of your GRE score report in order to help you assess your performance relative to other GRE test takers. However, percentile rankings are not included in the score report provided to the schools. "</p>
<p>[Your</a> GRE Scores, Percentile Rankings, and Score Report](<a href=“http://www.west.net/~stewart/gre/gre_percentile_score_scale.htm]Your”>http://www.west.net/~stewart/gre/gre_percentile_score_scale.htm)</p>
<p>Interesting.</p>
<p>They don’t really need them anyway… if you think about it. If the distribution changes too much, ETS will change the test next time around.</p>
<p>Universities can decide for themselves what percentiles a student falls in… comparing to other applicants at that school. That’s all a university really needs to know, anyway…</p>
<p>Shouldn’t the percentile br a more meaningful number than the X/800 you got?</p>
<p>My guess is that the percentiles never change enough to mean any more than the scores.</p>
<p>That is weird.</p>
<p>The percentiles do change over time, and while they are not reported to the school explicitly, an approximation is provided in the “Guide to Interpreting the GRE” that is available on the website.</p>
<p>Most schools are more interested in the percentages than the scores, but in the end the scores themselves are adequate to decision making.</p>
<p>I’ve certainly received the percentiles with all GRE scores over the past ten years. Is this a new practice this year?</p>
<p>^ That site is not the official ETS site. If the score report has percentiles, and you put percentiles in your apps, and I’ve seen apps where you can upload a scanned version of your own score report with percentiles, the idea that schools don’t get percentiles seems weird. To me, that’s considerably more important than the rough score. Besides, this is esp more important for the subject tests, where they are all different and I bet they probably vary more year to year…</p>
<p>I checked, and I’m still getting percentiles on the ETS official report. In every case. </p>
<p>These are not self-reported scores. These are not subject tests.</p>
<p>Heh, so I guess the answer to my question is that I shouldn’t expect the # to change much and that the percentile may be just as or more important. Good to know!</p>
<p>Thanks! 
Now I just have to figure out what schools I’m applying to and get to work on that…I think I may need to expand my possibilities now a bit from what I had been considering.</p>
<p>Strange, I took the test only a few days after you and received the exact same scores. I hope this is not a glitch covering up worse scores.</p>
<p>Did you even read the posts?</p>
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<p>Yes, I had. Summary: the scores probably won’t change. I was just pointing out a coincidence.</p>