<p>I got a 1080 on my GRE. My GPA is a 3.9 at a Top 20 university (per US News & World Report's rankings). Good letters/good writing sample/did undergrad research/good internships/a few awards/leadership positions in all of the handful of extracurriculars I did. </p>
<p>I am applying to grad school in the humanities which include HYP. These are not the only schools I'm applying to (not so worried about the others) and these are included due to them having some of the best departments in the nation for what I'm studying. </p>
<p>Question is, do I stand a chance for these schools due to my low GRE score? Any advice/help would be so appreciated. Thanks.</p>
<p>It may not be a deal-breaker, but it could well raise red flags. For humanities programs, they’re going to look more at your verbal score. Also, do any of your programs have hard GRE cutoffs?</p>
<p>No - I have contacted these schools directly and they have said that they do not have cutoffs and that they simply encourage people to apply. I have found their averages from other sites which supposedly compile this data and I do score lower than their supposed typical accepted applicant. I did much better on the V (620) than I did on the Q (460). This wasn’t surprising however considering this was the same pattern for my SATs - in a sense, I felt it was just affirming the obvious i.e. that I have trouble with the sort of questions the quantitative section asks. Is there something I should do? As I said, everything else is in line with my GPA. This is the one thing that is so far out of place in my application.</p>
<p>I dont think they care that much about Q but try to raise it to 650 to not raise red flag (it’s high school math…right?) Also, your verbal need need need to be raised to at least 700 since you’re in humanities. I know some people in life sciences got 750V if they can do it so can you!</p>
<p>You don’t want your awesome research exp and Lor application rejected because you didn’t cut it for the GRE right? HYP is top 5 so you definitely want to be as perfect as possible.</p>
<p>Although I’d say that if your reserach exp/awards/etc is very significant that you might be one of the best applicant in term of exp then you may still have a good chance to get accepted, but if you can retake it, why not just study more and retake it to minimize any chance of unwanted circumstances?</p>
<p>I agree that if you’re going Ivy League you should re-take it if at all possible. Especially since they’re changing the quantitative section and putting analysis back in there and it won’t be computer-adaptive any more, so you have the chance to do totally different.</p>
<p>How long have you been out of school? I did horrible on the GRE, a whopping 450 on the Q part of it, but a lot better on the other two sections. Long story short, I got in to both of the grad programs I applied to and Carnegie Mellon offered me a $9000 merit based scholarship per term also. I was applying for a humanities program. I contacted both school about my low score and asked them if it was worth taking the test again. Both said <em>surprise!</em> not really. I have been out of school for 25 years and one of the schools told me that the longer you’ve been out of school the worse you do on the standardized test so they take that in to consideration. My grades were good and I’ve taken classes since my degree so they had some proof I was not a total dummy. They are making me attend their summer math boot camp as a condition of my acceptance. My advice is to apply to all your dream schools. You are not just a test score. Application committees look at everything you are, not just a grade or a test score. If you are applying straight out of undergrad I think those scores matter more because you don’t have a work track record to bolster your application.</p>