Does taking the GRE more than a couple times make you look bad?

[Ngozi Onyema]

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Does taking the GRE more than a couple times (3 or 4 times) make you look bad? Will schools disregard your application if they see that you've taken the GRE 3 or 4 times? even if you did well the 4th time?

 

[nniedz]

I don't know too much detail about it but I know that ETS now offers the "score select" option where you can just send one score and they won't see how many times youve taken it. I took it twice and only sent my second score to schools. Hope that helps!

 

[Myosin]

My guess would be that it doesn't matter unless you've taken it a dozen times and all of your scores are random.

I think that someone who took it many times and had an upward trend in score would look good to the committees. It shows that you're very devoted and determined to invest that much time and money into studying and taking the test.

If you just take it a bunch of times, with inconsistent scores, hoping you get lucky just so you can mix and match the highest verbal and math scores, then I could see it being a problem. Never heard of anyone actually doing this though, mainly because it's incredibly stupid. Anyone with enough money to recklessly blow a grand on the GRE probably wouldn't be putting in the effort anyway.

 

[Ngozi Onyema]

Okay Myosin, but just to be clear, you can't mix and match subject scores right? It's the scores from one single test that the schools look at right? That's how I believe it is.

 

[Myosin]

Okay Myosin, but just to be clear, you can't mix and match subject scores right? It's the scores from one single test that the schools look at right? That's how I believe it is.

Some schools do allow you to use the highest quant and verbal score of any tests you've taken. This lets you mix and match

Fewer colleges and graduate programs do this with the GRE and SAT now because a lot of people were using "all-in" tactics where they would study nothing but math for 3 months, get a high quant, and then do the same for verbal. Some programs let you mix and match with any previous exam within a certain time frame, some only allow it for the past two exams you've take, and some only use single exam scores.