How is an "average combined" score calculated?

[mzwickham]

Hi,
I was wondering whether you have any idea how to calculate an “average combined score?” I’ve searched all over the internet and nobody seems to know how to calculate this metric. I’m asking you this because— even though ETS seems to advise universities not to combine the scores— the website for the Political Science program I am most interested in attending states that:

“The average combined verbal and quantitative GRE scores of admitted students typically is 82%. The average for the writing component is 76%.”

Additionally, in order to be in the running for a Graduate Fellowship at this particular university:

“Applicants must achieve a 75th percentile average on the GRE's Verbal and Quantitative components and a 4.0 on the Analytical Writing component.”

I took the GRE a couple of weeks ago and scored a 170 on the Verbal but only a 152 on the Quant. Unfortunately, I’m not totally sure whether these scores are good enough to meet an “average combined verbal and quantitative” score of 82%.

Since my scores are so obviously skewed toward the verbal, I was wondering whether you have any insight on how grad schools view lopsided scores. Does the fact that this program uses an “average combined” criteria mean they might be more forgiving of lopsided scores?

Thanks,
Amy

[tommywallach]

Hey Amy,

Great questions! I've never heard of a school combining, but I would assume that if they don't explain it any better, they simply expect you to add up your two percentages (quant/verbal) and divide by two.

HOWEVER, what I get from the text you wrote is that they want you to be in the 75th percentile for BOTH sections, and they just wrote it in a particularly annoying, unclear way. : )

As for how schools view lopsided scores, it totally depends on the school and the program. For example, if someone is using the GRE to apply for an engineering job, a lot of programs will basically disregard the verbal score entirely. Similarly, I imagine a lot of liberal arts programs don't take the quant score very seriously. Majors like economics (and possibly poli-sci) are more likely to care about both scores (unfortunately!). The best policy is always to talk to the admissions departments at the schools you're interested. Better safe than sorry!

-t