GRE too low?

[SMEI]

I just got a 168 Q / 149 V (unofficial) on the GRE. Is my verbal bad to the point of not being considered for top programs? I def could get 170 Q (ran out of time)
I'm a US citizen so English is my native language and did not prep for verbal at all.
I already sent my GRE to some programs right after the test.

 

[Michsund]

I just got a 168 Q / 149 V (unofficial) on the GRE. Is my verbal bad to the point of not being considered for top programs? I def could get 170 Q (ran out of time)
I'm a US citizen so English is my native language and did not prep for verbal at all.
I already sent my GRE to some programs right after the test.

Just email some places care some dont

 

[Andy Zhang]

I just got a 168 Q / 149 V (unofficial) on the GRE. Is my verbal bad to the point of not being considered for top programs? I def could get 170 Q (ran out of time)
I'm a US citizen so English is my native language and did not prep for verbal at all.
I already sent my GRE to some programs right after the test.

Considering you're a US citizen, I highly doubt that a 149 V would be that detrimental. I'm a Canadian citizen and my first language is English too and I probably can't even get 149 V with no practice...more like 146 V lol. I'm honestly terrible at verbal in standardized tests in general.

When I was at Columbia, I had international classmates who got 155+ V and they still came to me for any verbal-related help, so I think you're fine. I'd be significantly more worried if you got 149 V and were from an Asian country where English is not an official language.

 

[auroreaborealis]

Yea GRE Verbal is purely memorization of words. I got 160+ purely by taking sometime and cramming word lists.

Its not anything even relevant to any tech/CS/quant programs I think.

 

[SMEI]

Considering you're a US citizen, I highly doubt that a 149 V would be that detrimental. I'm a Canadian citizen and my first language is English too and I probably can't even get 149 V with no practice...more like 146 V lol. I'm honestly terrible at verbal in standardized tests in general.

When I was at Columbia, I had international classmates who got 155+ V and they still came to me for any verbal-related help, so I think you're fine. I'd be significantly more worried if you got 149 V and were from an Asian country where English is not an official language.

Yea GRE Verbal is purely memorization of words. I got 160+ purely by taking sometime and cramming word lists.

Its not anything even relevant to any tech/CS/quant programs I think.

Its just that I rarely see 140s in the trackers and I'm probably at the bottom of verbal scores when compared to others.
Also some people mention in these forums that places like UCB and CMU prefer decent verbal scores (160ish?).

 

[Andy Zhang]

Its just that I rarely see 140s in the trackers and I'm probably at the bottom of verbal scores when compared to others.

If you have time/money, I think it would help to try to improve your verbal score (mine was 150 for your reference, but I did get 170 in quant). But like @Michsund mentioned, double check with programs you're interested first.

Also some people mention in these forums that places like UCB and CMU prefer decent verbal scores (160ish?).

For UCB, it depends. If you have a PhD, then I think GRE is waived. Also, are schools returning to mandatory standardized test submissions next year? I know from seeing posts on QN that some people didn't send scores this year.