<p>Hi Everyone,</p>
<p>I took my GRE today, and they give a preliminary, unofficial score. I knew going in I'd do well on verbal and not-so-well on quant, and that's the case. My unofficial scores were 159 verbal (84th percentile) and 147 quant (29th percentile).</p>
<p>I'm applying to MA programs for geography, but my research will be qualitative in nature. My question: do you think that these scores are good enough? The main schools I'm looking at are Ohio State, Ohio U, and Kent State (all in Ohio).</p>
<p>Some other things to consider: my undergrad GPA is 3.78, I have an article in review for publication, I've conducted research, and I've had a variety of internships. I think that my letters of recommendation will also likely be pretty solid.</p>
<p>Also, I obviously don't have my essays back yet, but I'm pretty sure I did fine. I've always been a good writer and good with my verbal skills; math tends to be where I suffer.</p>
<p>Any idea if these scores will be good enough for the programs I'm looking at, or should I consider taking the test again? I plan on emailing profs at these schools who I've been in contact with previously to see what they think, but I'd like another person's informed opinion first.</p>
<p>Might be. I know that a lot of humanities programs don’t particularly care about the quant score, but at some programs that’s “you can hit rock bottom and we don’t care” and at other programs it’s more like “we don’t care, as long as you have at least the 50th percentile or something.”</p>
<p>Why don’t you ask the departments yourself? Now may be a good time of year to consult the department secretary.</p>
<p>Ditto the suggestion to see if the programs you are looking at have a minimum GRE cutoff. If they do, there may be a chance that the admissions committee never even sees your application.</p>
<p>They may not care about the quant score if it’s not relevant to your area of research or if you’ve gotten good grades in math classes that you’ve taken. You may want to increase your score to at least the 50th percentile though, just in case (if you have the time and the money, of course). The quantitative score tends to be easier to raise relatively quickly by working through a good prep book. Perhaps, you could ask a math-inclined friend to tutor you a little to bring you up to speed. If you don’t have the time to retest or if the cost would be a burden (or if you don’t think you would be able to raise your score), then I wouldn’t worry too much about it, especially if you’re programs don’t have hard cutoffs.</p>
<p>Thanks. I’m probably going to wait until I get my essay scores back to see, and if those aren’t up to par I’ll definitely retake.</p>
<p>I’ve never been particularly good at math, but not necessarily awful either. I took two math courses in college: quant analysis (A-) and statistics (B-).</p>
<p>Ohio State’s site says that those admitted frequently score in the 60th percentile and above… kind of vague, but that’s why I plan to get in touch with the faculty.</p>