What are considered good GRE scores?

[westpoloplayer]

I understand that schools are primarily interested in percentiles but I keep seeing references to "bad" GRE scores. What sort of score would you consider excellent/good/decent/bad? Can anyone enlighten me?
Thanks

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[VelcroSky]

That's hard to say where the cut off between good and bad is but many of the schools have class profiles online. They can be a little tricky to sniff out sometimes but you might want to look at the class profiles of the schools you're interested in. They generally break the incoming classes down by GRE scores, GPA, etc... That way you can compare your scores and see how competitive they are.

 

[wildfocus]

yeah, this is the only way to know how competitive you would be for the schools you want to apply. generally though, it seems from 2006 stats, the averages (excluding cornell) were ~650 q, ~550 v, and 4.5 a.

 

[bakaduin]

Just for a basepoint reference the University of Florida Class of 2011 had an average of 1192 overall (521 Verbal/ 671 Quant).

 

[sofficat]

i have seen colleges say that 1000 is min req for GRE. with that said, i 'earned' less than 1000 and got it.

 

[abou]

This is a bit of a booster. I smashed those scores so this relieves me a bit.

 

[Rebeki]

Does anyone know how much a really good GRE will counteract a lower GPA, if at all?

I'm sure its different for every school but if any one can give me an overall general impression that would be great.

 

[VelcroSky]

Does anyone know how much a really good GRE will counteract a lower GPA, if at all?

I'm sure its different for every school but if any one can give me an overall general impression that would be great.

This is another thing I would consult the school's website for. Many of them have a link for Application Selection Process or something similar to that. They give you an idea how they measure the applications.

 

[hoodle]

Lore is that a very good GRE score usually will counterbalance a lower GPA, at least to some extent. THere's not a magic formula. If you're counting on that, you should have a VERY good GRE score - average for applicants is probably not going to be a big plus, but rather simply not a detriment, if that makes sense. For the GRE to be a positive influence, I'd think it'd have to be very good indeed. Probably some schools have some sort of spreadsheet-normalizing thing going on, and others would eyeball it...

 

[kate_g]

Lore is that a very good GRE score usually will counterbalance a lower GPA, at least to some extent.

I think that "some extent" part is probably important... Going to vet school is a lot more like going to college than it is like taking the GRE. You can study really really hard for a couple months and wind up with a stellar GRE score. Maintaining a high undergrad GPA takes four years of sustained concentration and effort. So from the adcom's point of view, a bad GPA is probably more indicative of future performance in vet school than a great GRE.

So while a GRE that's in the 70th percentile (of vet school applicants, not the national percentile on your score report) might make up for a GPA in the 40th percentile, I'm not sure that a 90th percentile GRE could make up for a 20th percentile GPA... See what I mean?

 

[Rebeki]

My GRE is above average and my GPA is slightly below average - so I guess I was hoping for some confirmation that my GRE would help to balance my GPA.

I'm stressing out already. This is not good, I still have months of waiting ahead of me.

 

[kate_g]

My GRE is above average and my GPA is slightly below average - so I guess I was hoping for some confirmation that my GRE would help to balance my GPA.

As long as you're talking about the average for *accepted* applicants, then yeah, having an above-average GRE should probably counterbalance an almost-average GPA.

The average is just the average, after all, so somewhere near half the class will have a lower GPA than that. Unfortunately it's hard to tell how *much* lower, because schools seem to only publish the average stats for each class and not the actual distribution...