How Much Do GRE Scores Really Matter for Admission to Top Econ Grad Programs?

[gravenewworld]

How bad will a not so good GRE score (V450 M750 writting 5.0) affect my admission to a top Econ grad program? I did a lot of research on the internet about econ grad schools, and they said that at the top programs if you don't have an 800 showin g on your quantiative section in the GRE they automatically throw your application away. Is this really true? I mean I have really good GPA in math with very diffucult courses taken like intro to hilbert spaces and mathematical logic, even some math grad courses. Do adcoms care about difficulty of course work? I think the reason I did so terrible on the gres is because I didn't study 1 min for them. Your not really supposed to retake GREs are you? Will a good transcript outweigh the GRE scores?

 

[juvenal]

I think you can take GRE's. Taking it a second time and getting great scores is certainly not going to hurt you. I'm not sure you need an 800 though. How about your economics GRE score?

One factor is what undergrad you went to. A high GPA at a school without much of a recommendation isn't going to mean much.

 

[quasi426]

How many mistakes is there between an 800 and a 750? I can't see how any department would look down upon a 750 quantitative.

 

[Brad Barker]

I think you can take GRE's. Taking it a second time and getting great scores is certainly not going to hurt you. I'm not sure you need an 800 though. How about your economics GRE score?

One factor is what undergrad you went to. A high GPA at a school without much of a recommendation isn't going to mean much.

yeah, you can. but unfortunately, it's not like the SATs where you get to "mix and match" your top scores. you have to submit the results for each portion for either one attempt or the other.


not that I'm recommending you retake the entire exam or anything. have you looked at the econ departments at schools to try and find ballpark numbers concerning GRE's?

in not that long of a time, i was able to come up with statistics for a couple of schools' physics grad departments.

 

[gravenewworld]

Yeah pretty much the median GRE score at any decent Econ grad school was an 800 on the math part. They don't really care at all about the verbal and the writing. I also looked at what most people who get into the good schools have had as far as math goes and I have taken way more advanced math than 99% of people that get accepted. I hope that will make up for the lower GRE score.

 

[Brad Barker]

Yeah pretty much the median GRE score at any decent Econ grad school was an 800 on the math part. They don't really care at all about the verbal and the writing. I also looked at what most people who get into the good schools have had as far as math goes and I have taken way more advanced math than 99% of people that get accepted. I hope that will make up for the lower GRE score.

well, if it helps... yesterday i looked at cal-berkeley and cal-santa barbara's econ grad departments to see if the quantitative scores are really that high...

theirs were around 780. but i'd really hope that these schools don't disregard your entire application just because you were...what, two or three questions away from their average?

best of luck.