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GRE Score Conversion from Old to New & Percentiles

How to interpret the GRE scores. Let me tell you that you’ll receive a score from 130 to 170 for each section.
by Talha Omer, MBA, M.Eng., Harvard & Cornell Grad
in About the GRE

A lot of our students ask us about how to interpret their GRE scores. To put you on track, let me tell you that you’ll receive a score from 130 to 170 for each section, math and verbal on the revised GRE. Before 2011, this was 200-800 for each section. For the analytical writing section, the scale remains unchanged at 0-6.

Essentially what this means is that if you leave your test blank or if you do all questions wrong, you’ll still get 130 (each of Math & Verbal) of the revised GRE test (200 each of Maths/Verbal on the old scale). Don’t be too happy if you score close to 130 because you have flunked the test wholly or partially.

Correlating and Understanding your New GRE score

Many students, teachers, colleges, and universities are still only familiar with the old GRE scoring of between 200 and 800. Therefore here I have included a table that will help you match your New GRE score to the old GRE score.

What do Percentiles mean in the score report?

In addition to knowing your score based on the old scale, it’s also essential to understand your percentile rank. This tells you about the percentage of GRE test takers that have scored below you. So if your percentile is 97.3% on Math section, 97.3% of all GRE test takers on that test day scored less than you did.

New score Quantitative Old Score Verbal Old Score Quantitative Percentile % Verbal Percentile %
170 800 760-800 99 99
169 800 740-750 98 99
168 800 720-730 96 98
167 800 710 95 98
166 800 700 94 97
165 790 680-690 93 96
164 790 660-670 91 94
163 780 650 88 93
162 770 630-640 87 90
161 770 620 86 89
160 760 600-610 84 86
159 750 590 82 84
158 740 570-580 79 79
157 730 560 77 77
156 720 540-550 74 72
155 700-710 530 69 69
154 690 510-520 67 64
153 680 500 65 62
152 660-670 480-490 61 56
151 640-650 460-470 56 51
150 630 450 53 48
149 610-620 430-440 49 42
148 590-600 420 44 40
147 570-580 410 40 36
146 550-560 390-400 36 31
145 530-540 380 32 28
144 500-520 370 26 26
143 480-490 350-360 22 21
142 460-470 340 19 18
141 430-450 330 16 16
140 400-420 320 12 13
139 380-390 310 10 10
138 350-370 300 7 8
137 330-340 290 6 6
136 300-320 280 4 5
135 280-290 280 3 4
134 260-270 270 2 3
133 240-250 260 1 2
132 220-230 250 1 1
131 200-210 240 1 1
130 200 200-230 1 1
Analytical Writing score Writing %
6 99
5.5 96
5 87
4.5 72
4 48
3.5 29
3 11
2.5 4
2 1
1.5 1
1 1
0.5 1
If you have no idea how to write a good GRE essay to get a high score, you can easily address academic writers who work for a professional writing company SmartWritingService.com which helps students online.

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