General GRE: Verbal 590, Quant 770 - Will it Hurt My Chances?

[unit_circle]

General GRE---argh!

So I'm an aspiring condensed matter theorist who will be applying to grad programs in the fall. I took my General GRE today and got

Verbal: 590
Quant: 770

I was pretty miffed about the quant score, I got bogged down on a problem and used too much time and then had to guess on the last two because I had no time left. So I didn't get the 800 that I thought I was capable of. This might seem silly, but do you think the 770 might hurt my chances of being accepted as a theory student? It seems to me that any physics or math major should be able to score an 800 so I'm a little worried.

 

[Darkiekurdo]

I'm not familiar with the GRE and that sort of stuff, but isn't a 770 pretty good?

 

[unit_circle]

It's good compared to the overall test taker pool, but I don't think it's so good when compared to physics and math majors. I was reading the old threads on

www.physicsgre.com

and almost everyone there got an 800.

 

[Darkiekurdo]

At what level are those tests?

 

[CPL.Luke]

hell everybody makes mistakes I wouldn't worry abou it, you could take two different versions of the same test 1 after the other and have the scores differ by 50 points at least, and I'm sure the grad school admisions oficers know that.

 

[learningphysics]

hell everybody makes mistakes I wouldn't worry abou it, you could take two different versions of the same test 1 after the other and have the scores differ by 50 points at least, and I'm sure the grad school admisions oficers know that.

Agreed. Everyone makes mistakes. And 770 is a very good score.

 

[ekrim]

i wouldn't worry about what other people say on a GRE forum. theyre either lying or trying to convince the world that theyre the greatest physicist of all time

 

[unit_circle]

Thanks everyone, I think I knew deep down that it won't matter much, but I guess I was desperately looking for reassurance.

 

[G01]

I would put more thought into the Physics Subject GRE. I think most physics graduate programs consider that far more important.

 

[Brad Barker]

I would put more thought into the Physics Subject GRE. I think most physics graduate programs consider that far more important.

+1

that's what I've heard. a 770 is in the ballpark from what I've seen on gradschoolshopper.com. (e.g., uc santa barbara's quantitative avg is around 780.)

the verbal and writing scores also seem to be more highly considered than quantitative, anyway.

 

[Beeza]

If I remember the statistic correctly, something like 20% of math and/or physics students receive a perfect score on the quantitative part of the general GRE. I wouldn't be too worried about it.

 

[arunma]

So I'm an aspiring condensed matter theorist who will be applying to grad programs in the fall. I took my General GRE today and got

Verbal: 590
Quant: 770

I was pretty miffed about the quant score, I got bogged down on a problem and used too much time and then had to guess on the last two because I had no time left. So I didn't get the 800 that I thought I was capable of. This might seem silly, but do you think the 770 might hurt my chances of being accepted as a theory student? It seems to me that any physics or math major should be able to score an 800 so I'm a little worried.

In college I majored in physics and math, and I only got a 720 on the math section of the general GRE. I got into grad school in physics, so if I were you I really wouldn't worry about it.

 

[unit_circle]

Now that I have had a day to relax I've calmed down about it. It was just frustrating because I practiced for this test a lot, i.e. I worked all 7 tests in the ETS GRE book, read the Princeton Review book and took 4 tests that came with that, AND did the 2 tests on ETS CDROM, only to get the same score I was getting at the beginning of summer.


G01: That's very good advice about the subject test, I've been studying off and on since the summer of 2006, and now the general is out of the way I'm going to kick into high gear. My rematch with ETS is in October, and I'm coming back with a vengence.