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Will any school accept me with these scores?

Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 9:01 am
by feathers
My GRE scores are as follows:

GRE Revised General Test:
Q: 159 (74%)
V: 155 (67%)
W: 3.5 (38%)
GRE Subject Test in Mathematics:
M: 560 (26%)

I'm wondering which Ph.D. programs might grant me acceptance with scores like these. Or are there any particular schools that might have a known history of accepting students with scores in this range? (I should also note that I'm coming from a small public college, and have a GPA slightly under 3.5.)

Re: Will any school accept me with these scores?

Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 6:13 pm
by sara12
yes. I know people who have been accepted to decent schools (top 50) with sub-30th percentile MGRE scores. You're going to need to justify your scores with other good info - convince grad schools that you are a worthwhile investment.

Are those the september 2014 scores? How did you get MGRE scores already?

Re: Will any school accept me with these scores?

Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2014 11:54 pm
by dlee5h
Depends on what the rest of your application looks like. To help you get a more tangible sense of where you stand, in 2005, I got into the PhD program at UC Irvine with a TAship with this kind of application (I declined, by the way):

- Undergrad institution: UC Irvine
- GRE: High 700s for both Q and V, 5.0 on W
- mGRE: Mid 500s
- GPA: 3.57
- No research (unless you count 2 independent study courses)
- No publications
- Good recs from one well-known, two not-so-well-known profs
- Pretty bad statement of purpose (didn't really know what I wanted to study)

I think what might help you at this point is to:

1) Start on a research project ASAP with a prof that knows you well
2) Pick a more-or-less specific topic of study for grad school ("pure math" is too broad; "probability" is better; "stochastic PDE" is best)
3) Write a really good statement of purpose - ask profs and TAs to read your drafts and give you honest feedback
4) Find profs at the schools you're applying to whose research interests you and ask them thoughtful questions about their work via email or phone AFTER you've read some of their publications. In some cases, this could go a long way in helping your app get into the "maybe" or "yes" pile because some profs may advocate for you if they think you're capable of good research.

Hope that helps!

Re: Will any school accept me with these scores?

Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 8:08 pm
by bobbydd21
feathers wrote:My GRE scores are as follows:

GRE Revised General Test:
Q: 159 (74%)
V: 155 (67%)
W: 3.5 (38%)
GRE Subject Test in Mathematics:
M: 560 (26%)

I'm wondering which Ph.D. programs might grant me acceptance with scores like these. Or are there any particular schools that might have a known history of accepting students with scores in this range? (I should also note that I'm coming from a small public college, and have a GPA slightly under 3.5.)
Are you sending your subject score to schools that recommend or are you leaving it out? Trying to decide myself what is the better route (considering you have a good application besides the score).

Re: Will any school accept me with these scores?

Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:55 pm
by Mathwhiz25
Some schools don't put so much weight on the GRE scores. They don't necessary reflect your true abilities and some people with top scores have taken it many times. Send the scores that are required or highly recommended, but choose your schools wisely. Some schools do reject you outright because of your GRE scores.