GRE OVERVIEW

The Graduate Record Exam (GRE) is required for admission to most graduate programs in the United States. The GRE provides admissions committees with a standardized measure of academic performance for all examinees under equivalent conditions. The GRE includes four components:

1) Verbal Section: 30 minutes long. 30 total questions:

Reading Comprehension
Sentence Completion
Analogies
Antonyms

2) Quantitative Section: 45 minutes long. 28 total questions:

Problem Solving
Quantitative Comparisons

3) Logic: 60 minutes. 35 total questions:

Logic Games
Arguments

4) Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA): two 30-minute essays:

Analysis of an Argument
Analysis of an Issue

Our goal is to help you:

a. understand the exam
b. become proficient at the skills it requires
c. gain invaluable practice with different types of typical test questions

The bad news: From our experience, very few applicants do well on this exam without serious preparation.

The good news: By design, the GRE is a standardized test that is relatively easy to master. A 750 on the June 1990 exam must mean the same thing as a 750 on the December 2000 exam. Therefore, the content of the test remains the same over time to allow fair and accurate comparison of scores from year to year. That's what makes preparation so easy and worthwhile: every exam tests the same set of skills.

Scoring

The GRE produces individual scores for each section of the test and an overall composite score that ranges from 200 - 800. Your scaled score also corresponds to a percentile ranking, which shows how your score compared to that of the entire applicant pool.

What is a good score? Perception varies among schools and the quality of their applicant pools. Many state universities (with excellent programs) consider a score in the low 600s to be highly competitive, while a more selective program would consider a composite score of 650 to be quite low. To determine your odds of success, check the stats for accepted applicants at each school that interests you. Your goal should be to exceed that number by a comfortable margin.

Also investigate how each school handles the scores once they receive them. If you take the GRE more than once, most schools will use the highest of your test scores to make their admission decision. Yet some schools simply average the scores and are suspicious of a wide variation in an applicant's performance. Our advice: study and prepare well and take the test once. Do your best the FIRST time.

How Colleges & Universities Use the GRE

Each month, we receive hundreds of inquiries about the importance of GRE scores in Ivy League admission. Just how important is that one-day test in determining whether you'll be accepted?

From our experience, highly selective universities place extraordinary emphasis on the GRE. With hundreds of candidates competing for each seat in the class, schools use standardized test scores as a quick comparative benchmark. At many highly selective schools, your GRE scores are more critical than your GPA in determining your admission chances. We can't stress enough how imperative it is to do well on this test.

Why the importance? High schools differ in academic rigor and in the information they provide about students, making comparisons difficult. Some rank students, while others do not. Some report a % ranking, such as in the "top 10%", but don't specifiy whether you are the top 1% or 9%. How do you compare a top-ranked student from a class of 300 students vs a class of 3000? The student in the larger class faced more intense competition, but that doesn't justify punishing the student from the smaller school.

To level the playing field, universities consider your GRE scores as an indicator of your performance in comparison to other applicants throughout the world. To become proficient at the GRE, you must practice, practice, practice. Know the material well before the test. Learn the test instructions by heart. Take several practice tests under controlled test conditions. Familiarity will breed comfort with the process and increase your likelihood of a good score.