Ian Curtis, co-founder and former director of academic development at H&C Education admissions consulting firm, notes that grad program admissions officers often care more about GRE section scores than overall GRE scores.
“Ph.D. programs are generally interested in highly specialized applicants, so a low math score, for example, won’t necessarily hurt your chances of acceptance to great humanities and social sciences programs,” Curtis wrote in an email. “I recently worked with a student who was accepted to a top history Ph.D. program with a math score in the 40th percentile. He had numerous publications and extensive teaching experience, the benefits of which far outweighed his poor performance in math.”
