Expert: Jay Cutts - 10/29/2009

Question
Hello,

I just took my GRE test yesterday and I was curious about my score. I hit a 620 V and a 520 M, while my essays are still under review. I finished my MS with a 3.8, have 11 years of exp. in my field of Human Resources and am looking to apply to an I/O Org Behavior doctoral program. What do you think? Should I take it again?


Thanks for your time and expertise.  

Answer
Hi, Pablo.

For a doctoral program they may want Quant (math) scores in the mid 600's.  Your Verbal score is good, though they may prefer just a bit higher.

I'd suggest you contact the programs you are applying to and find out what the average scores were for people they accepted last year.  Of course you want to be above the average.

If you do need to improve, I think you could do so within 2 or 3 months.  I teach the GRE myself (and am available to work with you. See my site.) and have had many students make 200 points improvement on the math. The problem with the math is not the math facts themselves but that the problems are very complex.  They usually overwhelm your ability to organize complex math information.  I teach a wide range of skills that are very intuitive, straight forward and visual and thus are very powerful tools for people who are not math experts.

You could also probably pick up maybe 100 points on the verbal.  The challenge with verbal is that you can easily get down to two possible answers but it's very difficult to figure out why one of those two is better than the other.

As it turns out, it's never that one is better.  One of them is actually dead wrong and contains a fatal flaw. I teach you what these fatal flaws are and how to spot them.

I have a lot of free help on my site:

http://www.cuttsreviews.com

and would be glad to talk further with you about your GRE, personal statement, etc.

Good luck.

Regards,

Jay

Jay Cutts