urbanrenewal

yeah, I was leaning toward it being fine but heard from a few people (one of which being my thesis advisor) that my verbal was a bit low.. How about for MPA programs where more weight may be put on qualitative skills rather than the "pure" quant that econ PhD programs expect? I know the GRE isn't that important in the big picture, but it was still something that was lingering on my mind. Thanks!

Hi all, I took the old GRE about week before the revised version came into play. My scores were 800Q/530V/5.5 AW. On the ETS diagnostics I was getting 650V and somehow choked on test day so didn't do as well on verbal as I had hoped. Thankfully my math and writing came out pretty high, so that may redeem me, but to be honest it feels like adcoms will look at anything and everything to differentiate between applicants given how competitive econ/MPA programs have become. I'm thinking of applying this application season to a few econ/ARE programs but am really focusing on MPAID-esque programs. I was hoping to just be done with my standardized testing, but I'm wondering whether it would be worth taking the revised version (keep in mind I've never actually studied at all for the revised version yet.. not really sure what was actually revised :) ) to try and get a higher verbal score but of course realizing the inherent risk of scoring lower in quant or writing. Just a bit of background: went to a top public US univ. for econ undergrad. GPA is 3.85-ish give or take. What do you all think? Is it worth taking the time to start studying again and retaking it? Thanks!