Importance of GRE

nauru
Thu, 03 May 2007 12:20:29 +0000

I’d say the importance of the GRE is inversely proportional to the rank of the school/program to which you are applying. For top schools/programs it doesn’t really matter as long as you are within the range of scores they consider acceptable. For so-so ones a strong score (way above the program average) could really bolster your application.

No matter where you apply, a crappy GRE will not be beneficial. But I doubt many committed grad school applicants do poorly on it because your score mainly depends on the amount of time and effort put into preparation.

In most cases the GRE seems to be a “checkmark” part of the application, just to make sure you are, in fact, intelligent and didn’t just suck up to get your GPA or choose a massively grade inflated university so that you could get a killer GPA for grad school admissions. The application decision will be made on other elements of the application. (imo)