Importance of General GRE scores

[metasoarous]

I'm wanting to get a sense from folks about how important the General GRE scores are if you do well on the subject test (specifically for getting into grad school for mathematics). My imagination tells me that the subject test is WAY more important than the general, and as the October dates are coming up very soon, I'm tempted to focus all of my energy on the subject. My guess is that without studying for the general I would do decently (killing the math section at least) - as long as I don't look like a complete dunce, would a knockout subject test score do the trick? Looking to get some good feedback from folks who have gone through this sort of thing, or better yet, are on application review boards. I'm sure every school is different, and obviously it behooves to do as well as I can on every test I take, but it's also good to have a sense for weighting what matters the most.

Cheers

Chris

 

[JCVD]

You are right, the subject test is much more important and you should spend all of your time studying for that.
As for the general, without studying at all you should get an 800 on the math section (it's similar to the SAT/ACT math section) and your scores for verbal/writing really don't matter as long as they're not abysmal.

 

[metasoarous]

That's good to hear.

Thanks

 

[Metis]

Take the practice test your given when you register for the test and see how you do. A poor general math score will look bad. Don't assume you'll walk in and get an 800 without even doing a bit of studying. I had a friend who was a math major that did that and did a miserable (for math majors) 700.
That being said with minimal preparation (read: not none) you should be fine to make 780-800