<p>Has anyone been admitted to grad school with "low" or "mediocre" GRE scores? I'm specifically looking for scenarios of engineering/science grad school applicants. I guess "low" and "mediocre" are relative but has anyone recieved below a 500V and 700Q (153 and 155 respectively on new GRE) and been admitted to a program? Has anyone received a net score below 1100 or 1000 (1000 = 300 on new GRE) and been admitted?</p>
<p>Note:
I'm not necessarily say the above scores are low. Obviously a low score depends on type of program, type of school, personal standards, etc. </p>
<p>A few other questions regarding the GRE:</p>
<p>1) How do admissions committees look at applicants with one decent GRE score and one bad GRE score?</p>
<p>2) How important is the GRE relative to GPA, Resume, SOP, LORs?</p>
<p>I would say in GENERAL that GRE is probably of lowest priority of the factors you listed (GPA, resume, SOP, LOR). </p>
<p>GPA and LOR are pretty closed to the top of importance for most programs followed closely by SOP then resume. GRE is well below those in terms of importance (at least it seems like that to me). A good GRE score won’t get you into your program, but a bad GRE won’t necessarily keep you out either.</p>
<p>I’ve got medicore GPA/GRE (3.5 GPA, 314 GRE/4.5AW) and I’ve got interviews to nearly every program I have applied to (programs ranging from top 10 to top 100). I’m guessing that my LOR’s and SOP were excellent enough to compensate for average grades and GRE.</p>
<p>I have similar quantitative stats (almost identitical lol) to bingbang and I’ve also had success getting interviews from top 10 programs. Field of research is biosciences.</p>
<p>I’m a Mechanical Engineering masters student, and I got a 720Q 480V 4.0AW. I was admitted to Georgia Tech, Auburn, UC Davis and Cal Poly on those numbers. I also had a few other things on my resume like 6 years military service, which may have carried more weight than the GRE.</p>
<p>Well I haven’t been “admitted” but I do have 2 interviews (which is close enough to admitted) at U of Vermont and U of Utah. Still waiting on 8 others (some top programs like UCI, UCLA, Stanford) and 3 rejections (UCSD, UCSF, U of Mich)</p>
<p>My GRE was a 650 Q and 520 V, which is below average for most grad schools. My GPA also was a 4.15…</p>
<p>Forgot to say I am applying to Neuroscience programs</p>
<p>Thanks for all the helpful feedback. It looks like GRE scores are not the main factor for admissions, which is comforting. My stats are close to bingbang’s - 3.6 GPA and 312 GRE. But my quantitative is below average for most of the programs I’m applying to.</p>
<p>Anyone else have a situation where your GRE scores are below the avg of the programs you’re applying to.</p>
<p>my friend got into USC (mech engineering) with a 158 in math and a 150 in verbal…4.0 gpa some small amount of student involvement as an undergrad and 1 internship (experience-wise)…</p>
<p>I think there may still be hope for you! Don’t give uP!</p>
<p>"I have similar quantitative stats (almost identitical lol) to bingbang and I’ve also had success getting interviews from top 10 programs. Field of research is biosciences.</p>
<p>Numbers aren’t everything."</p>
<p>hello Jayeyesee,</p>
<p>I’m about to apply to microbiology programs but my gre scores are pretty low (155v/153Q)…your msg was really hopeful…can I contact you via email for some advice. My gmail id is keys.beyonce@**********. Please reply…i need help with selecting schools</p>
<p>"I would say in GENERAL that GRE is probably of lowest priority of the factors you listed (GPA, resume, SOP, LOR). </p>
<p>GPA and LOR are pretty closed to the top of importance for most programs followed closely by SOP then resume. GRE is well below those in terms of importance (at least it seems like that to me). A good GRE score won’t get you into your program, but a bad GRE won’t necessarily keep you out either.</p>
<p>I’ve got medicore GPA/GRE (3.5 GPA, 314 GRE/4.5AW) and I’ve got interviews to nearly every program I have applied to (programs ranging from top 10 to top 100). I’m guessing that my LOR’s and SOP were excellent enough to compensate for average grades and GRE."</p>
<p>Hello bingbang,</p>
<p>I’m about to apply to microbiology programs but my gre scores are pretty low (155v/153Q)…your msg was really hopeful…can I contact you via email for some advice. My gmail id is keys.beyonce@**********. Please reply…i need help with selecting schools</p>
<p>So I took my GRE’s the other day and was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice. My undergrad GPA’s and GRE scores are as follows:
GRE:
Quant - 170
Verbal - 149</p>
<p>GPA: (from a top 30 undergraduate school)
Overall - 3.7
Math major - 3.9
Econ major - 3.7
(good LORs).</p>
<p>I am thinking about applying to graduate schools in IE, Applied Stat, and Econ, but worry that my GRE verbal is a little too low. I was born in the USA, but I am not a native speaker. I would think that the perfect score in quant would warrant a second look from the admissions person/people, but then again, I don’t have a clue how these admissions work. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>@toofargone I’m a microbio grad student. You need to talk to your advisors/professors about schools, they’ll know much more about programs or PIs. Another thing you should do is find research papers on subjects you’re interested in and see at what universities those groups are based (Pubmed to the rescue!). Then make sure that those universities have multiple PIs whose work you’re interested in, in case a PI isn’t taking students. </p>
<p>It’s better to have a somewhat smaller curated list of schools, rather than a random grab bag because you liked the name of the university. You really go to grad school to work with a particular PI, rather than just to have the name of the school on your diploma. When you write your SOP you need to explain WHY you’re applying to that particular school (and it should be more than just “so-and-so told me it was a good program”). </p>
<p>Additionally, GRE scores are pretty much the last thing most adcoms look at. The general sense is as long as you’re at/over 1200 on the old scale, it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>I got into a MS program at top 10 engineering school in the US with a 650Q/470V 4.0AW and a 3.3 GPA from a Big Ten School. I am a GSR and my entire MS degree is being paid for by my program.</p>