Low GRE scores

[polkaparty]

Originally Posted by adnormous

Is this true? I am sooo terrified~ I am taking the exam on November 13th...

I read a month or so ago on the ETS site that you'll only see at most 1 new question, so don't worry too much about these new questions.

[loudandclear]

If it allays anyone's fears, I took the experimental quantitative section for the new question types when I took the exam, and the questions weren't really any more difficult than the actual test questions were.

[cooldude41]

Getting low GRE Score after hard preparation is tough to take. recovering from the reality and preparing again is touch ask but depending on the major you plan to apply, even low score will be good enough for admission. but would it be good to study in a school that gives admission for low gre score, will the education have some value? thats something you have to think about. always you can prepare again and take the exam and try to score more.

[unitroot]

Study hard and retake. It's worth it.

[ZomgRogged]

Jeez I'm just going to be a sophomore and these threads really scare me. Is a high Q score really that indicative of a good economist? How close to flawless do you have to be to get that 780+?

[notacolour]

No, a high score doesn't mean you'll be a good economist, but the math in the GRE is easy and people doing advanced math should of course be able to miss few or no answers on such a test. This is one of the few things about your record that, at this point, you can pour energy into and improve.

So adcoms see lots of perfect and near-perfect scores, and it's easy to dump those who don't have them to pare down the applicant pool.

But that's not to say that being able to do well at simple math means you'll be any good at more difficult math, or abstract math, or economics...

[oldprogrammer]

Originally Posted by ZomgRogged

How close to flawless do you have to be to get that 780+?

It's really not all that flawless. It's not an absolute score, but a percentile score. When you take into account all the people taking the GRE for non-quantitative fields and those people not trying to get into a top PhD program, you don't have to achieve perfection to score near the top. On another thread, someone was talking about how they missed a lot of questions but still scored a 760.

[jeeves0923]

I know it isn't exactly the same thing, but I got one wrong on the SAT math back when I was getting into undergrad and got an 800.

GRE didn't tell me if I missed any, just a score. But if it is a pure percentile thing, you'd think that 800 Quantitative would be higher than 94th percentile... and that 610 on Verbal would be lower than 89th...

Oh yeah, and on the GRE it isn't how many you miss, but which ones you miss (if you take the computer test). If you miss early questions, they give you easier questions later and your ceiling immediately drops.

[LouisBD]

Without wanting to offend anyone, I just wanted to say that I really understand that people with bad gre scores are sometimes ignored in the application process. If you're a bit honest you should admit that the questions in the q section are really easy. It is math for fourtheen year olds.
It is weird to see people discussing real analysis, topology or something similar, while some of them seem to struggle with such a questions. If you want to go to grad school. Just (re)take the test, if you don't manage to get a (near) perfect score, you should perhaps rethink the whole thing.