<p>Sooo, say i want apply to either math or computer science grad school (not sure whether i want to right now). Do grad schools care about my verbal and writing scores? Or do they just care about quantitative?</p>
<p>I have heard from credible sources (including the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Penn) that graduate programs in the sciences don’t really care about verbal or writing scores as long as they are not abysmal. Meaning that a 90th percentile score won’t help you more than a 50th percentile score, but a 20th percentile score might raise a red flag. </p>
<p>Both math and computer science have Subject GREs though. Math graduate programs usually require the math subject test and it carries a lot of weight (often serving to pre-screen applications), while computer science programs will accept CS GRE scores but don’t usually require them.</p>
<p>Hmm good input. I definitely wont score in 20th percentile, but i was just a little worried since my verbal and writing sat scores werent stellar. Anybody else want to comment?</p>
<p>Verbal and AW scores matter to the Stanford CS department:</p>
<p>"Q: What are the minimum GRE scores required to apply to the Computer Science MS or Ph.D. program?</p>
<p>While there is no minimum requirement for GRE scores, a strong application would include percentiles in the high 90s for the Ph.D. program and scores in the 90th percentile for the MS program."</p>
<p><a href=“https://cs.stanford.edu/wiki/admissions/FAQ/ApplicationRequirements[/url]”>https://cs.stanford.edu/wiki/admissions/FAQ/ApplicationRequirements</a></p>
<p>^ That doesn’t specify that the percentiles refer to the verbal and AW sections. That’s a possibility, but it’s much more likely that the department is looking for high 90s on the quantitative section and the CS subject test. I <em>highly</em> doubt that a 5.0 on the AW section would make a student ineligible for admission to the computer science PhD program, though I am willing to believe that a less-than-perfect quantitative score does. (According to phds.org, Stanford’s average quantitative score is a perfect 800. Coincidentally, I have two friends in computer science with quantitative scores in the 760-780 range. Both got into every graduate program they applied to except for Stanford.)</p>
<p>@b@r!um do you know what they got on their writing and verbal sections? also, i briefly looked at mit’s website for computer science grad school and they don’t even require the GRE lol</p>
<p>They did not have verbal scores in the 700s, if that’s what you are wondering. But honestly, it would make absolutely no sense that the minimum verbal score for admission to the CS PhD program should be higher than the average verbal score for the comparative literature program (also top ranked, by the way).</p>
<p>I heard from a math professor at UCLA that they don’t really care about the verbal and writing on the general GRE, but there are some schools that do have higher cutoffs (she knew this from teaching at one).</p>
<p>Can you give us a concrete example of a higher cutoff? I am wondering if we are talking 50th percentile or 95th percentile.</p>
<p>@bar!um: Stanford says, “…percentiles in the high 90s for the Ph.D. program and scores in the 90th percentile for the MS program…,” and “percentiles” and “scores” are clearly plural, so it seems clear that Stanford is referring at least to both quantitative and verbal scores in those percentiles.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean a thing. Stanford’s econ page says that the quantitative score should be at the 95th percentile, despite the fact that an 800 would place you only at the 94th percentile. Also, Princeton’s econ page says their average score is 780-800 in both sections and I know for a fact that this is not even close to true (quantitative yes, verbal no). It’s econ not CS, but it shows you that not all of the information posted is completely accurate.</p>
<p>Sooo basically should i even study for the verbal and writing sections for thr GRE? I will definitely study for quantitative, but not sure if i should worry about the other 2 sections.</p>
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<p>Closer to the former, but she didn’t mention anything specific. The idea was that those schools wanted to make sure most of their grad students would be strong enough communicators to be able to do a reasonable job as a TA. She gave Duke as an example.</p>
<p>re Studying/preping for GRE (there is a whole subforum devoted to this topic)</p>
<p>That depends on how good a test taker you are and how comfortable. I would at least run through a couple of practice tests the week or two before to get an idea of the pacing and the material. No surprises that way, and the verbal is more difficult than the math section.</p>
<p>ok thanks guys! what i’ll prolly end up doing is studying for the verbal and writing sections for a little bit then study for the quantitative a lot more so i can at or near 800 on that one.</p>
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That makes sense, and it’s actually what I meant when I said that verbal scores don’t matter as long as they don’t raise a red flag. But I probably shouldn’t have stated concrete numbers for the sake of example since the exact requirements naturally vary by program. </p>
<p>I suspect that proficiency is mostly a concern for international students, who are also much more likely to score poorly on the GRE than American students. I have yet to meet a native speaker who scored (or admitted to scoring) below 500 on the verbal section.</p>
<p>My message to the OP was meant to be, “make sure you get a half-decent score but don’t worry about making the 90th percentile.”</p>
<p>Coincidentally, I have a math grad student friend at Duke with a verbal score in the low 500s. Whatever their proficiency cutoff is, it’s not exorbitantly high.</p>