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Serious Question about GRE Verbal Score


ellenc

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Hi, guys, I'm applying for Econ PhD 2009 and I have got so many useful information from this forum. The quality and the seriousness of the people here is very impressive. The old posts have answered most of my doubts, but I've this question in mind for a long time and sincerely look forward to people's advice.

 

I've V460 Q780 in GRE and am currently in MA Econ program of 20-50 US Econ Dept wanting to apply to departments ranked slightly higher, say, around 20. I talked a senior professor in my department about the PhD application and got from him that I should retake my GRE to get my verbal above 500 at least. While I mentioned my tight schedule in fall, he supposed all I need to do is to prepare for around a week and just to sit in the exam for 1 day. That cannot be my case since English's not my first language and I have nightmare experience preparing for Verbal when I took GRE 2 years ago. I doubt if I can even get Verbal above 460 when I retake it without considerable inputs of time. The professor's opinion brought to my attention if the top departments have an unofficial minimum requirement for Verbal besides Quantitaves too.

 

So I would like to have your opinion if retaking GRE is advisable, my tradeoff is that if I retake the GRE, I will not have time for PhD 1st year Micro course. My profile is very mediocre since I've only decided to go for PhD at the end of Spring but I'm very determined now. Currently I'm taking effort to impress 2 quite productive professors that I'm working for and hope to get their solid references. Thank you very much for your time and advice!!

 

PROFILE:

Type of Undergrad: B.A. Econ from China (decent but not in top 3)

Undergrad GPA: 84% overall, 86%Econ

Type of Grad: M.A. Econ

Grad GPA: 3.9/4

GRE: 780Q, 460V, 4.0AWA

Math Courses: All standard courses for BA and MA + Simulation (lab, graduate) + Stochastic Processes (graduate, fall), Probability and Stats (graduate, fall)- mostly As but B in undergrad CalculusI

Econ Courses: Haven't taken any PhD level courses yet, BA and MA courses are miscellaneous

Other Courses: doubled majored in Law

Letters of Recommendation: 3 econ professors, one productive in IO, one in Econ Development and the other one in Finance(took his course)

Teaching Experience: Tutor for undergrad Micro, Macro, (also in intermediate level), Finance, Calculus for academic service center

Research Interests: Microeconomics, Macro(monetary policy), Econ Developments

SOP: In the Process

Applying to: (since it's quite secured to get into PhD program in my own dept), I'm aiming departments ranked within 30, need more survey of the schools since the rankings are sometimes confusing

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I got a 470 in Verbal and 800 in Quant and got into every school I applied to, including some top 20 ones (except University of Western Ontario :tup:). I don't think there is any unofficial requirement, especially if you are a non-native speaker. Some people get into Harvard with verbal below 500.
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Princeton does not care about verbal.I met last week an MIT prof and he told me that a verbal could be a signal of good communication in English .It should not be a stellar one but a 450+ is good score.I do not really known how schools treat applicants with a GRE taken in China(the story is well known) but I think you are OK!
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If you have time, you should go all out studying and take it again. Just make sure your quantitative doesn't fall below your previous score of 780.

 

If you don't have time, don't sweat it. As previous poster has stated, it's not necessary to have over a 500V... it just looks nice. Plus, I've heard that some places put more emphasis on the percentiles rather than the actual score, which makes sense because the scores themselves are pretty misleading (500V looks a million times better than 490V, just like an 800Q looks a million times better than a 790Q or 780Q)

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Thank you all for the helpful comments~ I've seen the old posts and got the feeling that the GRE verbal score has much less impact than the other aspects in application, so I didn't think about retaking it until this week. But taking into account what you and others have suggested, I will not risk time studying for GRE while there are plenty of other preparations to improve the application! Thanks again for the answers!
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I have a friend who got 430 and made it to NYU and Columbia.. My verbal score wasn't too great either.. Jus forget about the score now and concentrate on the rest of the application. Try and be around 110 in TOEFL. You'll be just fine. All the best..:)
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I have a friend who got 430 and made it to NYU and Columbia.. My verbal score wasn't too great either.. Jus forget about the score now and concentrate on the rest of the application. Try and be around 110 in TOEFL. You'll be just fine. All the best..:)

 

 

OFF tOPIC....

 

nasH12 How are things till now at Princeton?How's israleecon?

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things are pretty cool.. its a beautiful campus.. i have a very diverse class.. haven't really met any of the biggies yet.. around sep 10 the actual session starts... so i guess i'll get to meet them then.. israelecon is doing good too... (sorry for digressing from the topic.)
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