<p>I wasn’t 90%+ on any of the GRE subsections, didn’t have over a 3.75 GPA, and still got into a couple of top 10 programs within my engineering field.</p>
<p>what are the different criteria of masters vs. phd. regarding admission. Sorry for OT</p>
<p>I think for an Engineering major your GRE Q score that put you in the 77th percentile was pretty good. Remember it is not just Engineering majors who take the GRE. It is likely that many of the test takers who ended up in the 78th through 99th percentile were Math, Physics, Astronomy, Geophysics and other physical science majors who probably took more Math than the typical Engineering major and are over-represented in the group who were in the 80th percentile and above. There were probably also Liberal Arts graduates who have no interest in Science and Engineering but have extremely high aptitudes for Math and learned all they needed to know to get a top GRE Q score in the lower division Math and Science courses they had to take to fulfill their distribution requirements.</p>
<p>You are not competing with them for a seat in a Graduate Engineering program, you are competing against other Engineering graduates and among that cohort your score will be considered definitely good enough to succeed in an Engineering Program.</p>