<p>I see a lot graduate schools give average percentiles instead of average scores, so what approximately would an 80th percentile be combined GRE score?</p>
<p>700 Math, 600 Verbal, and 5.0-5.5 Writing for the individual sections. I don’t think there’s a known percentile for combined scores (so saying a 1400 GRE doesn’t mean as much as a 1400 SAT).</p>
<p>About a 1300 V+Q. I think the general consensus is that the AW section doesn’t matter too much. If they include that, gun for around a 2000 with the AW scaled to 200-800 instead of 0-6.</p>
<p>I thought that the reason these are scored as percentiles is that each test is different and they score you against how everybody else did.</p>
<p>Ok thanks. I heard somewhere that 80th percentile was like 760 for the math gre.</p>
<p>belevitt, I think the percentiles move around a little bit, but only by ~10-20 points. I remember getting my score immediately after my GRE and hunting all over the internet trying to find what sort of percentile that would land me in historically.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, my 730 on the quant section was 77th percentile.</p>
<p>Isn’t it easier than the high school SAT though, since you take it with 4 more years under you?</p>
<p>The math is the same, but the verbal is harder. Keep in mind you’re also only competing against people planning on going to grad school. Also, I did considerably worse on math on the GREs than the SATs since I hadn’t done most of the stuff it asked about in forever. Like, think back to geometry and all of those theorems you had to remember but only crammed in for the tests. Yeah. They’re on there. And you have to try to dig them out of the cobwebs during the test (unless you’re smarter than me and study).</p>
<p>GRE percentiles depend on when you do it and how everyone else did. When I got 780 on math a couple of years ago it was 90th percentile.</p>
<p>The College Board posts the cdf of the scores (the percentiles) on their website:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/gre_0809_guide.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/gre_0809_guide.pdf</a></p>
<p>They list the cdfs on page 13, which puts 80% around 570V, 730Q, 5.0AW.</p>
<p>These number matter very little in actual applications, however, because different fields have very different distributions - for engineers, a 730Q is low but a 570V is decent. Conversely, English majors would be thrilled to get a 730Q and would be in real trouble with a 570V. Pages 17-19 show median scores by intended graduate field, for reference.</p>
<p>The best way to interpret your GRE scores is to go to the department (the one to which you are applying) website and look at their mean or “25%/75%” scores. If your scores are lower, ask yourself what else you have on your app that will outshine the rest, and if they are higher, ask whether or not it is enough to cover any weak spots you have elsewhere.</p>
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<p>I actually found the math harder than SAT math as well, because compared to the SAT, it utilized relatively higher levels of fluid thinking and relatively lower levels of crystal thinking. I.e. the stuff you had to know (formulas, geometric principles, etc.) was around the same, but there was much more analysis involved in determining how to solve a problem.</p>
<p>Verbal was harder than SAT verbal, but not by much.</p>
<p>Analytical writing was around the same. The Issue part, but not the Argument part, is similar to the SAT writing section and can be a pain to write since many of the topics they present are almost impossible to form an objective argument for. If you’re like me, the choice of topics you are given on the Issue part can make or break a good score.</p>
<p>I thought the math was harder, too, since I hadn’t used much of the stuff since around middle school. Most of the stuff I had been doing in college was calculus, so geometry was completely gone from my memory. :(</p>
<p>I also thought writing was easier, but that might just be because I went from a 500 on the SAT II Writing to a 5.5 on the GRE. :p</p>