<p>I have taken the gre three times now. I took it three times earlier this year, while I <em>was</em> dealing with a LOT of health issues and all the stress it caused (not to mention my innate test anxiety), and so I did terribly. I probably shouldn't have even registered for the test, but I was desperate to go to graduate school as soon as I graduated because grad school has always been a dream of mine. </p>
<p>Long story short, the highest total score I was able to make was a 1250. The highest quantitative was 660 and highest verbal a 610. Analytical: 4.5 (consistent). Now, with the revised GRE, the scoring for verbal and quant will only be from 130 to 170. Analytical will stay the same. </p>
<p>My goal is to get into Virginia Tech in biomedical engineering or computer science (or Duke if I'm very lucky, long shot I know) or another top college, for a PhD, after I get a masters in software engineering at a no-name, non-research university. So, my credentials are already not that great outside the GRE.</p>
<p>I'm just worried that retaking the revised GRE will hurt me in the long run. I just don't know if higher ranked colleges like VT will thumb their noses at me, even if I were to make a perfect score on the revised version. </p>
<p>(THE MAIN REASON I'M WONDERING THIS IS BECAUSE ETS IS CLAIMING THAT THE REVISED GRE IS SUPPOSED TO BE A MORE ACCURATE REFLECTION OF HOW A STUDENT WILL PERFORM IN GRADUATE SCHOOL.)</p>
<p>I would not take it again. You’ve already taken it 3 times and all of those scores will go to the school. It’s not going to make a difference if you do average on 3 versions and suddenly blossom on the 4th. They can’t help but look at 3 consistent scores and figure the higher score might be the fluke. </p>
<p>You are more than a test score. Stop obsessing about a standardized test and review your grades, your experience, your essay, your recommendations-- all the things that go in to an application. Focus on writing a precise essay about why you want to go to that particular school-- do not use a cookie cutter template letter to send to all your schools. Your essay could be the make or break portion of your application if you tailor it to focus on why that school is the only school that is capable of helping you get to where you want to go. Good luck with your applications!</p>
<p>What 4education said. Your GRE is just a small part of your total application. Scoring 20 or 30 points better won’t make any difference, whereas your professor recommendations and SOP can make a big difference.</p>
<p>…but you’re overlooking the fact that the OP is applying to a Ph.D in one of two very quant-heavy fields with a 660Q. Even at “lower-ranked” schools, this is a red flag.</p>
<p>He’s taken the GRE three times already. A fourth time is going to look flat-out desperate - and what if he still doesn’t meaningfully improve? Then he’s wasted time that could be spent improving all the other aspects of his application.</p>
<p>This is not to overlook the fact that there ARE many administrative cutoffs for programs in CS and Engineering regarding the GRE Quant score. If the OP doesn’t raise that particular component (however small you may think it is), the rest of his application may never even be looked at. It’s a bit harsh, but the OP is not exactly a superstar in research where professors would be readily willing to pull his application out for exemption of admin cutoffs. Ph.D. programs are fickle and crapshoots and meeting these primary requirements for your application to even get looked at is paramount.</p>
<p>For an MA or a Ph.D. in less quant-heavy disciplines, the OP’s GRE would be ‘good enough’ since those tend to look at overall composite score. CS and BioE won’t care much that the OP scored a high-percentile Verbal; they’ll mainly notice that the Q (at its highest) was around the 60th percentile. Situational factors aside (or test anxiety or what may have you), this is a BIG red flag to programs looking to admit a selective body of students into their doctoral program.</p>
<p>I agree with Oyama. Duke, especially, is believed to put more emphasis on test scores than other universities. In any case, engineering programs expect their applicants to score over 700. Top programs expect scores closer to 800. </p>
<p>But others are also correct in that programs will see all scores and that four different scores won’t reflect well. Programs don’t like to see students take the GRE that many times and not improve. The OP had better be REALLY sure that he/she can score much higher on the Q section before taking it. </p>
<p>The OP should also determine WHY the Q score was so low. Was it careless calculations? Slow mental computation? A need for brushing up on geometry? An inability to focus at the start? There is no sense in retaking a standardized test unless you can identify and strengthen your weaknesses. It’s not enough to say that you had health issues and text anxiety. Maybe those things magnified your weaknesses, but they didn’t create them.</p>
<p>Does the revised GRE allow the use of a calculator? Although the non-computer adaptive format may help you, you won’t have any more time to complete the section, so you should still be able to move quickly and accurately. Take as many practice tests as you can – and analyze the results. Practice is no good unless you know what you did wrong.</p>
<p>In short, the OP needs higher GRE scores for his/her field, but unless the scores are likely to be significantly better, there’s no point in retaking.</p>
<p>The other factor here is that nobody knows what the norms are for the new test. There’s no history of use, and gradcoms won’t have much to measure it by. So even if the OP scores relatively “better” percentile-wise, gradcoms are going to see all four scores and wonder if that better score on the new test was a fluke of the new material, if it’s a sign that ETS’ percentiles are all out of whack, or whether the OP really improved his/her math skills.</p>
<p>I personally would have taken it again if I had not gotten in with my present score.</p>
<p>The reason is it’s not computer adaptive and based on all of the practice tests I took, I KNOW I could blow an old-fashioned test right out of the water. </p>
<p>FWIW, if anyone here hasn’t graphed ETS’s PRESENT curve for the quantitative and verbal sections, do it. Their percentiles are ALREADY all out of whack. That’s the whole problem and why they revised it. Schools are asking for better predictors. The analytic section was previously the best predictor of performance, they took it out, and now they are putting it back in.</p>
<p>So OP, I dunno. I am fairly sure, based on a gazillion practice tests online and on paper, that it would work for me. I am not sure if it would work for you. (I got a 620 quant, by the way, but much better verbal.)</p>
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