GRE - Analytical Writing Section

[neuronerd1]

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Do grad schools really care about this section of the GRE? I did well on the verbal, math, and psych sections I but got a 3.5 on the writing section (I always skipped over this on the practice test). Will this hurt my chances? Should I take the GRE over again to try and raise it? Thanks.

 

[yikes]

i've yet to apply so i don't know how useful my answer is, but my suggestion would be to see what percentile you're in. i mean if you got a 3.5 and are in the 95th percentile, then i'd say you're good to go...

 

[RayneeDeigh]

Well it's scored out of 6 and I know a 5.0 is somewhere around the 75th percentile mark... so a 3.5 will definitely hurt you. It won't make it impossible for you to get in or anything, but grad schools definitely do care how well you write. I would re-do it, personally. I considered re-writing with my 5.0.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

It depends when the poster took the GRE, I took it back before they changed the scoring system, and I think a perfect score was 4.0....which was 95-99% (my score 😀 )

-t

 

[KillerDiller]

I'm not sure exactly how much it matters in the realm of clinical psych. I do know that none of the schools I interviewed with last year mentioned my not-very-good writing score. The section is sort of a joke in my opionion. It's scored in a matter of seconds and length seems to matter more than anything else. Anyway, I bet you can offset a poor writing score with a well written and cogent personal statement.

 

[JockNerd]

My understanding was that the writing section didn't matter. If you got something like a 2 you might have some explaining to do.

Those essays are marked in literally seconds by grad students working for ETS. The strongest correlate of scores is essay length. I did great on my babbling, 45-minutes-of-typing essay. I doubt it'd impact your applications at all. 🙂

 

[neuronerd1]

Okay, I got responses ranging from "it doesn't matter" to "i would take it over again" so I'm not sure what to do.

I've found that most programs either don't mention the GRE writing section (in the disclosure data) or that the mean is about 5.5.

It's been a year since I took the GRE. If I take it again I might do worse on the other sections . . .

Thanks for responding.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

What is the % rank of your score? I think that can tell you a bit more, instead of just the raw score.

-t

 

[psychplease]

.

 

[Ollie123]

I'd say it depends what kind of schools you want to go to for one. I'd also say it depends just HOW good your other scores were if you want to chance retaking. If you had a 1500, I'd say give it a try without retaking, if its a 1300 you might want to retake.

I doubt that alone would kill an otherwise good app at most schools, but you never know. Knowing nothing else about your app I say apply this round and if you don't get in, retaking the GREs should then be one of several things on your list of things to do before re-applying.

 

[neuronerd1]

I just found my score report and I did better than what I had remembered:
4.5/6 or 52%. It's not the best but not awful either. Thanks for the advice, but I think I'm not going to retake it now.

 

[joshie6891]

Hi, I'm new here, nice to meet you all!

I just thought I would chime in - I just got my scores today and got a 4.5. A little disappointing, but as far as I can tell, they don't value the AW score as much as the other two scores.

Is a 4.5 damaging? I scored a 1410 overall.

 

[Ollie123]

If you had done worse on the other sections it might have been a problem but a 1410 is a very solid score (it should mean your GREs are at least competitive at any school in the US). I wouldn't worry about it, GREs aren't a big consideration to begin with once you pass the initial bar, and you should be well beyond that bar no matter where you want to apply.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

They really don't look much at the writing (I aced it, and only a couple places mentioned it 🙁 )

-t

 

[joshie6891]

Thanks! Makes me feel better. Stupid writing section... 🙂