You may need to perform better in one section than in another, but performing well overall on the GRE demonstrates your overall competence as a student. On the other hand, if your GRE score percentiles are wildly unbalanced, admissions may question your ability to handle the rigors of graduate-level work in general. So, while your Quant score may need to be higher than your Verbal score for a math-heavy program, graduate schools still generally prefer to see relatively balanced GRE test results.

And since your Quant score has to be relatively high for math-heavy programs, having relatively balanced scores means test scoring that is around average or higher in the other GRE sections—including the Writing section. Many test-takers also mistakenly assume that math-heavy programs won’t pay any attention to the GRE Analytical Writing section. But, while a low Writing score is unlikely to be a disqualifier in itself, it could give admissions the impression that you didn’t care enough to even try.

When it comes to something as important as grad school, do you want to take that risk?

Warmest regards,

Scott Woodbury-Stewart
Founder & CEO, Target Test Prep