<p>What's a competitive score for the GRE Mathematics Subject Test? I'm talking about scores that will make you a strong applicant at top 25 Math PhD programs.</p>
<p>I've seen all kinds of comments - from 77th percentile is very good, to anything below a 90th percentile is unremarkable. Obviously both can't be true. Most grad schools (besides a few that have 80th percentile "requirements") will say there is no minimum score. But does anybody have an idea at what percentile admissions people will start to think "that's nothing special?"</p>
No score is special at the top programs. Weak scores can keep you out, but strong scores won’t get you in. For domestic applicants, the generic advice is that a score above the 80th percentile is sufficient to get your application read everywhere and the rest of your application is what actually gets you accepted. For international applicants, the story may look different. I remember a faculty member from the University of Minnesota saying, “If you score at the 90th percentile of the math subject GRE, you are better than most of our American applicants and worse than any of the Chinese.”</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I have friends with the following percentile scores at:
MIT - 80ish
Yale - 70ish
UCLA - 60ish
Duke - 50ish</p>