<p>I took the GRE about a month ago and did very well on the Verbal and Math. Verbal: 770, Quantitative: 750. But a couple days ago I received my score report and discovered I'd only managed a 4 (41st percentile) on the Analytical section. I'm not an international student, I scored quite well on the writing SAT II (790), and I've written hundreds of articles for a modestly prominent political website: I can write. I think I can easily produce proof of this. But does the low analytical score doom me or will top programs take into account other factors- my high verbal, my writing samples, etc- and more or less ignore the analytical score? I'd really rather not retake because I worry about how silly I'd look retaking having done so well on the two main sections. Oh, and I'm applying to top government, public policy, and IR programs.</p>
<p>Honestly, in most fields (not sure about yours specifically), the AW section is given very minimal weight in decisions, and I’d imagine your strong history of writing would be given considerably more weight than your AW score.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about it, honestly, as psych_ has said. Between your good score on Verbal and your extremely solid history of good writing, I don’t think you have anything to worry about; programs usually don’t really care about AW. Especially as you aren’t applying to English programs, and you aren’t an international student.</p>
<p>I agree with the pack here - its a little lower than most programs want, but only by a little and this is pretty much the smallest admissions factor there is - just not a big deal. If you were an international student, things might be different - a lot of international students with a weak command of English are still able to score highly on the Verbal, so I’ve heard that the Analytical gets a little more scrutiny then.</p>