Mediocre Subject Gre score,What to do?

[dalendao]

Friends,I have secured only 710(63 percentile ) in MGRE,2014(i was never a speed king).I hail from India & would have to rely on financial support to do phd in an american university.I believe the rest of my application (SOP,GPA in Bsc & Msc,reco etc) to be quite strong.Previously,I was thinking of applying to universities like upenn,michigan,columbia,utah etc.With these scores do i stand a chance.Also some universities dont ask for subject Gre score,but say its highly recommended.Should I send them this score.Are there good math departments in US that dont pay much heed to MGRE scores?Your help is highly appreciated.

[Brick]

As someone with a 53 percentile, who's applying to a few applied programs which just have it as "recommended" I'd be curious to know about these questions as well.

(Send, or don't send?)

My academic adviser said not to send it, so I probably won't, but just curious.

[MathCat]

I think you still have a chance if the rest of your app is strong, but you will want to apply to a few safer ones too. Some very good schools are happy if your score is over 700, so I do not think your score is something to be too worried about, except maybe in like top 10 programs. Even then, you have a shot: it's only one aspect of your app!

[Kilgore_Trout]

Quick note. The OP is international. Therefore the advice for him may not apply to domestic applicant. Its best to treat the two like apples and oranges, in my opinion.

To the OP, I would dig through the past through years of applicant profiles and compile a list of profiles similar to yours (ie international, mgre, pure v applied) and see what schools they applied to and where they got accepted. Dont confine yourself to this but it will provide you great insight. I did this for myself.

[MathCat]

Even if OP is international, one should still reach. But definitely have safer backups - and if you can afford it, probably apply to more schools than you might if you were American. I am also an international applicant, and it is my understanding that generally private schools are a little easier to get into as an international student, so that might be something to take into account. Maybe my advice is not the best, because I am not actually that keen on doing a PhD in the US. I would be quite happy to stay in my home country for a MSc, so I have only applied to a few fairly high ranked departments in the US.

[Austin]

Unfortunately, when you compare the number of international applicants to the number of spots available to international students, you have to figure that some of those top schools use the MGRE as a weed-out. I certainly think it's a good idea to have one or two reaches, but you have to be sure that you would be a good fit at these schools. As we're always told, the MGRE is only one component of an application, but it's also the only thing we all have in common, and thus one of the few raw comparisons the adcoms have. For a top school to accept someone with an MGRE score that they're not crazy about, the rest of the profile really has to stand out. (Of course, the number of reaches one applies to is also a function of disposable income.)

I will say, however, that if you're really just interested in getting a good education, there are plenty of schools where you can do some good math without blowing the MGRE out of the water. Think US News ranks 40-80.

[grad]

Friends,I have secured only 710(63 percentile ) in MGRE,2014(i was never a speed king).I hail from India & would have to rely on financial support to do phd in an american university.I believe the rest of my application (SOP,GPA in Bsc & Msc,reco etc) to be quite strong.Previously,I was thinking of applying to universities like upenn,michigan,columbia,utah etc.With these scores do i stand a chance.Also some universities dont ask for subject Gre score,but say its highly recommended.Should I send them this score.Are there good math departments in US that dont pay much heed to MGRE scores?Your help is highly appreciated.

At my current institution I've heard that the cutoff GRE score for domestic applicants is 40th percentile and the cutoff for internal applicants is either 50th or 60th percentile. So your GRE score would be good enough for this place. It's a mid-ranked program and definitely not a bad place to be by any means. It's not quite intense enough of a program for me though, so I'm attempting to transfer to a top 25 place.

I know that SUNY Stony Brook is top 25 and doesn't even require a math GRE score. In fact, it's ranked as the #4 best program in the country for geometry according to US News. So there's at least one very good program that doesn't require the math GRE.