It entirely depends on you. You can take the GRE multiple times and send whichever score you want the universities to see. This is possible because ETS provides the Scoreselect option. According to ScoreSelect, if you take the GRE test more than once, you can choose the GRE score you want to send to the universities. This means that you don’t need to submit all of your scores.
ScoreSelect provides GRE test takers with various possibilities to send their GRE scores to prospective universities. The process is simple and works as given below:
In this Article
On Test Day
If you take the GRE and send your scores to universities on the test day, ScoreSelect gives you two options.
Send All Scores
This option lets you send all of your scores from the last five years.
Send Most Recent Scores
This option lets you send your most recent GRE test score. In this case, it will be the GRE score you took on that particular test day.
GRE scores are valid for five years. By simply opting for Select All option, you can send all of your GRE scores from the past five years to the universities.
Note that on the test day, you can send up to 4 score reports for free.
You can even choose either one of these options for different universities on the test day. So if you want to apply for both Harvard and Stanford, but you wish to send Harvard All score and your most recent score to Stanford, you can do that with the ScoreSelect option.
After Test Day
If you want to send your scores to universities after the test day, Scoreselect will give you three options:
Send All Scores
With this option, you can send scores from all the past five years.
Send Most Recent Scores
This option lets you send scores from your most recent test score.
Send Any Score
This option lets you send scores from one or more tests from the past five years.
If you use Scoreselect after the test day, you will have to pay an additional fee.
Notice a new option that says “Any.” This is a handy option introduced by ETS to encourage more students to take the GRE multiple times. Though the option is a paid one, students get a chance to select any of their score reports.
The “Any” option lets you send any scorecard(s) from the past five years. With this option, you can send your best score or your best scores.
The ScoreSelect option is available for both GRE subject tests and GRE revised General Test.
This would surely increase the students’ interest in GRE and be a deciding factor for students who are thinking of whether to take the GRE or the GMAT. With the flexibility of sending the preferred score to the institutions, this test can become the most favorite among students.
Can you Retake only One section of the GRE
You can retake the GRE and skip the sections that you want to. But this is not a good idea. This is because schools will see the complete GRE score for a single test. The Scoreselect option doesn’t let you pick and choose sections from different attempts. Students can only select the complete test score of a GRE. For example, if you took the GRE twice and scored 160 on quant, 155 on verbal on the first attempt. On the second attempt, you scored 130 on quant and 160 on verbal. So you can send either the complete score of attempt one or the full score of attempt two. You cannot choose the quant of attempt one and verbal of attempt 2. So it will be a big mistake if you retake only one section of the GRE.