A School's AVERAGE GRE Score Is Not a Cutoff

Say it's midnight and you pull up a program's class profile. Average GRE Quant: 160. Your last practice test: 157. You close the laptop, cross the school off your list and start looking at programs you wanted LESS.

That is a TERRIBLE decision, and you made it because of one word you didn't stop to think about. The word is average.

The good news is that this is fixable in about five minutes of honest math. Grab a pencil. I'm going to make you do some work, because reading about averages and understanding them are not the same thing.

What an average actually is

An average is the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers there are. That's it. Add them up, divide by the count.

Now stop reading and think about this: if a class has an average Quant score of 160, does every person in that class have a 160?

Of course not. For the average to land on 160, some people scored ABOVE it, and the only way that works is if other people scored BELOW it. An average is a balance point. It is a middle. It is NOT a minimum.

I'll bet you knew that already. I'll also bet you didn't apply it the last time you looked at a class profile. Let's fix that with real numbers.

The average doesn't tell you how many people are below it

Here's the part most people get wrong. Even if you accept that SOME admits scored below the average, you probably assume it's "a few." Or "about half." Do you actually know? Try this.

Let that sink in. The average tells you where the middle is. It does NOT tell you how many admits sat under it or how far under they were. If a program publishes a range or a middle band, read that too. If it only publishes an average, you know even less than you think.

What a few points under really means

GRE Verbal and Quant are each scored from 130 to 170, and the writing section from 0 to 6. You can see how the scales work on the ETS scores page. A couple of points on that scale is not a different universe. It's often the difference between two or three questions you SHOULD have gotten right.

Is a higher score better for you? YES. Is the score one piece of a file that also holds your essays, your letters and your work history? Also YES. Being a little under the middle is a reason to make the rest of your application strong. It is not a reason to quit on the school.

The mistakes I watch people make every week

1. Crossing a school off because you're under its average. You just proved to yourself that admits land below the middle. INSTEAD: keep the school on the list, and treat the average as a target to train toward, not a gate that's already locked.
2. Rushing a retake to beat a deadline. Booking a test two weeks out with no change in how you train just gets you the same score with a new date on it. INSTEAD: ask yourself what you want MORE, hitting this deadline or hitting it with a better score. I made that case in Fall Deadlines Are Close. Should You RUSH Your GRE?, and it still holds.
3. Thinking more practice tests will raise your score. A practice test is a measuring device. It tells you roughly where you are. It doesn't make you better. INSTEAD: take the free POWERPREP practice tests no more than once a week, and spend the days in between redoing the questions you missed until you can explain every step.
4. Chasing the hardest questions. Your missing points are almost never the brutal ones. They're the 'easy' ones you rushed, did in your head or misread. INSTEAD: go through your last practice test and list every question you missed that you KNEW how to do. I'll bet that list is longer than you expect.
5. Refusing to take notes because you're 'smart enough.' That's pride, and pride is a ceiling. INSTEAD: write down every given and every step, on every question, in every practice session, until it's automatic. Look at the two examples above. The paper did the work.
6. Being afraid a retake will 'look bad.' With ScoreSelect, you choose which scores you send. INSTEAD: read ScoreSelect Changes the Retake Math, then decide whether a retake is worth it based on your data, not your nerves.

If you're a few points under, here's the plan

First, find the gap in exact terms. Not "I'm bad at Quant." You are NOT allowed to have 'no idea' why you're missing questions. Look at your last test and name the cause of each miss: didn't know the rule, misread the question, did it in my head, ran out of time because I used the long route.

Second, train the cause. If you misread, slow your first read and take notes. If you used the long route, learn to TEST THE ANSWERS and test values like you just did. If you ran out of time, remember that pacing is a symptom. Fix the thing that's eating your clock.

Third, give yourself enough runway. A real score jump comes from weeks of steady training, not a weekend of panic. If you still have time before your deadlines, use it the way I described in Summer Is Your BEST Window to Train for the GRE: consistent, focused sessions with review baked in.

Here's your challenge for today. Pull up your most recent practice test. Count the questions you missed that you could have gotten right with better notes or one more careful read. Write that number at the top of a page. Then go back to the class profile of the school you crossed off and put it back on the list. That number on your page is the distance between you and the middle, and you can close it.