What Is a Good GRE Score for Graduate School Admissions?
Categories: WORLD EDUATION NEWS
Grad school hopefuls wondering how well they need to perform on the GRE exam should understand that programs have varied expectations for standardized tests, admissions experts say.Admissions officers suggest prospective students look up the GRE score ranges among admitted students at the schools they are considering and check if these schools have GRE score requirements.Researching grad program admissions statistics can help you determine which GRE scores are good enough to qualify for acceptance at desirable programs. People who successfully complete the GRE receive three scores: verbal and quantitative scores, which can range from 130 to 170, and a writing score, which can range from 0 to 6.However, GRE test-takers who are not yet sure what type of grad program they would like to attend can use the following ballpark figures for guidance on how high of a GRE score they should aim for. Guidelines for Setting Target GRE Scores According to the Educational Testing Service, the nonprofit organization that designs and administers the GRE, the mean verbal reasoning score among all GRE test-takers between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2017 was 150.05. Meanwhile, the mean quantitative score was 152.80 and the mean analytical writing score was 3.5.Experts say that math-heavy grad programs tend to desire students with high quantitative scores and put less emphasis on verbal scores. In contrast, grad programs in humanities subjects typically want students with high verbal scores. Maxwell says applicants to math-intensive grad programs should understand that their quantitative GRE score will be scrutinized, so they should study hard for the quantitative section of the GRE exam.Andrew Selepak, director of the graduate program in social media at the University of Florida, says that GRE scores that are good enough for someone to qualify for one grad program may not allow them to be a competitive candidate elsewhere.