Should I Retake the General GRE?

[bjnartowt]

Hi all, is it a good idea to re-take the general GRE if your initial scores were so-so?

I mean, my initial scores were Not Bad...I got 700 on quant, 570 verbal, and 4 on writing. But that was back in Feb 2007, and preceeded my seeking an engineering degree.

In the middle of my engineering degree, I took the Physics GRE, and reaped a rather-low 620. I will be re-taking that in November 2010.

Now, I see things differently, and am seeking to go into physics. Should I re-take the General test? Or, if I do Pretty Good on the physics-GRE, will that suffice?


Background (skipable paragraph here): I'm hoping to get into U-Arizona, Rutgers, Penn State, U-Southern California, or U-Florida, or if I get lucky: U-Cal San Diego, U-Maryland, U-Pennsylvania, U-Cal Santa Barbara, or U-Mich Ann Arbor. But: all I have is two years' worth of physics that constitutes a Master's degree, and a 3.7 in grad classes (where grades are definitely inflated). They won't hear about my spring semester unfortunately, which is when I'll be studying Jackson and have some boast-worthy stuff to put on my application. I was also entertaining the notion of taking a year off, but that has been strongly discouraged.

 

[sweetpotato]

I would think if your GRE scores were high enough to get you into grad school in 2007, they would be high enough now. Unless you are applying to much more prestigious programs now than in 2007.

You could also see if the schools you're applying to now publish the average GRE scores of their admitted students and see how you compare.

 

[doodle_sack]

i would recommend you to take general GRE, your verbal and AWA scores are pretty fine, but the quant score won't please the ad coms, IMO!