<p>Can GRE scores help distinguish you? Or do they only hurt you if you do poorly?</p>
<p>I've been looking into some masters in financial engineering programs (Baruch, Michigan and a few others) and there stats suggested that the vast majority of those applying had perfect scores on the quantitative section. </p>
<p>For Baruch at least, the average applicant had a 781 on the quantitative section of the gmat and more than 50% of those admitted received an 800.</p>
<p>Yes, the percentile on the old GRE quant section was ridiculously skewed such that a ton of people got an 800, so not having an 800 quant will hurt if you’re applying for a math-focused program.</p>
<p>On the other side of the coin, the verbal test was skewed in the opposite direction - the 90th percentile was in the 600s, and even mid-700s was 99th.</p>
<p>In mathematics-based fields, they will not help distinguish you, since a 750+ is expected and many people had an 800. However, a poor score (and in a mathy field, that’s going to be less than a 700 - I got a 740 when I took it and that was only the 85th percentile) will be a strike against you.</p>