I started out with a 520 on my GMAT (31 Quant, 30 Verbal). After a couple of sessions of an MPREP class, I already was able to rise to a 590 (37 Quant, 34 Verbal).
I took a GRE after not even looking at a GRE book, and got a 161 on Quant and 152 on Verbal. I am thinking that I should take the GRE, because I scored high without even studying. At the end of the day, if I can study and rank in the top 10% (which I think is possible with those scores as a benchmark), then maybe that would be better than a medium GMAT score.
However, after attending MPREP GRE vs. GMAT workshop with Stacey, it does feel like the GMAT is the better choice for me since I have a non-quant major (biz and IR) and non-quant job (recruiting).
I would love to hear your thoughts.
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- RachelR514
- Course Students
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2015 3:09 pm
- StaceyKoprince
- ManhattanGMAT Staff
- Posts: 9361
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:05 am
- Location: Montreal
Re: GRE vs. GMAT (with scores listed)
Hello! Thanks for coming to my session on Monday!
Wow, yes, your GRE quant score is quite high for not having done any studying yet (for that test)! Nice job.
Your GRE verbal score is a decent amount lower - your verbal percentile on GRE is 54th, while on the GMAT, it's 71st. So just from that perspective, it might be a bit of a wash.
Are you looking for a 700-type score? I'm going to guess yes, since you talked about wanting a top 10 percentile score on the GRE.
Your verbal is clearly your strength, so if you stick with the GMAT, you'd want to try to get verbal up to 40 (or more, of course). You're currently at 34, so that may not seem like a huge leap. 40 is 90th percentile on verbal, so it's not an easy score to get. But given that you already lifted 4 points after only a few classes, I'd say it's an appropriate goal.
On the quant side, you'd then want to try to get to about 45. Percentile-wise, that might seem low (it's 63rd), BUT there's a little history to learn here. (Sorry, boring RC-style info coming...)
A particular score on the test always reflects the same level of knowledge - a 45 today means the same thing that it did 10 or 20 years ago, in terms of the level of knowledge / skill required to earn that score. But percentiles can change, since percentiles are based on the pool of test takers sitting for any particular exam. And that's what has changed significantly in the last 5 to 10 years: first, many more internationally-educated test-takers take the GMAT now, and they tend to have a different kind of math education / grounding than North-American-educated candidates. Second, as the GRE has become accepted at so many schools, students who were worried about the math aspect of the GMAT started peeling off and taking the GRE instead, further skewing the overall GMAT quant pool higher. A score of 45 used to be nearly 80th percentile not even 10 years ago - and now it's just a little over 60th - even though the skill level it takes to get that score hasn't changed one bit.
So what does that mean? Practically speaking, the schools know this is happening. So they don't typically have the same expectations for North-American-educated non-quant-background candidates as they do for an engineer coming from a country with a very strong math educational system.
They do want to make sure you do well enough that you'll be fine in quant-focused classes in b-school, of course. From everything we've been able to piece together, that threshold seems to be about 45 for the top schools.
If you can put together a Q45 / V40, that'll put you right at about 700, which is 90th percentile / top 10%.
On the GRE side, we don't have the same level of insight as to what schools want, unfortunately. Your quant score of 161 is about the 80th percentile on the GRE - so that sounds a lot better, but again the pool of test takers is different. You've got people taking the GRE who are going for grad school programs with no quant aspect at all. So the skill it takes to get that score is likely similar to what it takes to score in (best guess) the lower 40s on the GMAT. Maybe mid-40s.
Now, you got that score without even studying the GRE question types (though the math you'd studied for the GMAT obviously carries over to the GRE). So let's say that you have a good chance to lift that to 165 or so (the top score is 170). That's a great score no matter what - I don't think a school would be concerned at all about your quant skills if you could get that kind of score, even though it's the GRE.
The question mark, then, is the verbal. Do you think vocab vs. grammar was the difference - is your grammar a lot better than your vocab? Another difference might be the RC passages - some of the GRE passages are super-academic and dense, more so than on the GMAT. Did the verbal feel harder on the GRE? Or were you maybe a bit burned out and that was all it was?
I have no idea what schools would look for on the verbal side of the GRE, but looking at the percentiles, I would say your goal there should be at least 160 (which is 85th percentile), primarily because your GMAT verbal shows that you're capable of doing quite well on this side of the fence. Again, though, I don't know what schools look at / consider competitive on the GRE side, because the data just hasn't been published.
What do you think about all of that?
Wow, yes, your GRE quant score is quite high for not having done any studying yet (for that test)! Nice job.
Your GRE verbal score is a decent amount lower - your verbal percentile on GRE is 54th, while on the GMAT, it's 71st. So just from that perspective, it might be a bit of a wash.
Are you looking for a 700-type score? I'm going to guess yes, since you talked about wanting a top 10 percentile score on the GRE.
Your verbal is clearly your strength, so if you stick with the GMAT, you'd want to try to get verbal up to 40 (or more, of course). You're currently at 34, so that may not seem like a huge leap. 40 is 90th percentile on verbal, so it's not an easy score to get. But given that you already lifted 4 points after only a few classes, I'd say it's an appropriate goal.
On the quant side, you'd then want to try to get to about 45. Percentile-wise, that might seem low (it's 63rd), BUT there's a little history to learn here. (Sorry, boring RC-style info coming...)
A particular score on the test always reflects the same level of knowledge - a 45 today means the same thing that it did 10 or 20 years ago, in terms of the level of knowledge / skill required to earn that score. But percentiles can change, since percentiles are based on the pool of test takers sitting for any particular exam. And that's what has changed significantly in the last 5 to 10 years: first, many more internationally-educated test-takers take the GMAT now, and they tend to have a different kind of math education / grounding than North-American-educated candidates. Second, as the GRE has become accepted at so many schools, students who were worried about the math aspect of the GMAT started peeling off and taking the GRE instead, further skewing the overall GMAT quant pool higher. A score of 45 used to be nearly 80th percentile not even 10 years ago - and now it's just a little over 60th - even though the skill level it takes to get that score hasn't changed one bit.
So what does that mean? Practically speaking, the schools know this is happening. So they don't typically have the same expectations for North-American-educated non-quant-background candidates as they do for an engineer coming from a country with a very strong math educational system.
They do want to make sure you do well enough that you'll be fine in quant-focused classes in b-school, of course. From everything we've been able to piece together, that threshold seems to be about 45 for the top schools.
If you can put together a Q45 / V40, that'll put you right at about 700, which is 90th percentile / top 10%.
On the GRE side, we don't have the same level of insight as to what schools want, unfortunately. Your quant score of 161 is about the 80th percentile on the GRE - so that sounds a lot better, but again the pool of test takers is different. You've got people taking the GRE who are going for grad school programs with no quant aspect at all. So the skill it takes to get that score is likely similar to what it takes to score in (best guess) the lower 40s on the GMAT. Maybe mid-40s.
Now, you got that score without even studying the GRE question types (though the math you'd studied for the GMAT obviously carries over to the GRE). So let's say that you have a good chance to lift that to 165 or so (the top score is 170). That's a great score no matter what - I don't think a school would be concerned at all about your quant skills if you could get that kind of score, even though it's the GRE.
The question mark, then, is the verbal. Do you think vocab vs. grammar was the difference - is your grammar a lot better than your vocab? Another difference might be the RC passages - some of the GRE passages are super-academic and dense, more so than on the GMAT. Did the verbal feel harder on the GRE? Or were you maybe a bit burned out and that was all it was?
I have no idea what schools would look for on the verbal side of the GRE, but looking at the percentiles, I would say your goal there should be at least 160 (which is 85th percentile), primarily because your GMAT verbal shows that you're capable of doing quite well on this side of the fence. Again, though, I don't know what schools look at / consider competitive on the GRE side, because the data just hasn't been published.
What do you think about all of that?
Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
Instructor
Director, Content & Curriculum
ManhattanPrep
2 posts Page 1 of 1