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To report 70% subject test score or not

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2015 11:21 am
by airy
Hello everyone,

the results of the September Mathematics subject test GRE are out, and unfortunately I did a lot worse than I had hoped for; I was exactly in the 70% percentile. I am also interested in Statistics/Biostatistics departments. I guess this score already rules out, say Stanford. But there are many Statistics departments which only suggest (or "highly recommend") also taking the GRE subject test.

Do you think I should report my score to them or not?

Re: To report 70% subject test score or not

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2015 1:47 pm
by p-adic
70% is solid. I got into a top 30 school with a 68% or 66% or something like that (can't remember the exact number). This was for Math, where the competition is stiffer.

Re: To report 70% subject test score or not

Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 8:55 pm
by Catria
airy wrote:Hello everyone,

the results of the September Mathematics subject test GRE are out, and unfortunately I did a lot worse than I had hoped for; I was exactly in the 70% percentile. I am also interested in Statistics/Biostatistics departments. I guess this score already rules out, say Stanford. But there are many Statistics departments which only suggest (or "highly recommend") also taking the GRE subject test.

Do you think I should report my score to them or not?
No, a 70th percentile doesn't rule out Stanford statistics or biostatistics.

Re: To report 70% subject test score or not

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 7:48 am
by airy
Ah thanks to both of you, I am glad it is not as bad of a score as I initially thought! On the other hand, when a program says it is highly recommended or only recommended or even optional to take the subject test (and not required), should I still go ahead and report it?

Re: To report 70% subject test score or not

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 9:00 am
by Mathwhiz25
I would go ahead and report the score. The 70th percentile is really good for many statistics programs. I would have said to shoot for the 80th percentile if you were going to study pure mathematics.

Re: To report 70% subject test score or not

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 10:45 am
by airy
Ok, thanks! I set my ballpark estimate based on Stanford's Statistics admissions website, which reports an average percentile of 82% on the math subject test among the accepted candidates and I assumed that all good stats programs would be looking for such scores at least (especially since I am an international student). Though ironically they do not provide any quantiles or a standard deviation or any measure of dispersion of these scores, only the mean :P. This makes it harder to interpret.

Re: To report 70% subject test score or not

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2015 3:52 pm
by Mathwhiz25
I would also advise you to make other parts of your application shine. GRE scores are only one factor. Make your CV dazzling, if they require one.