One of the burning questions from GRE students is whether to view or cancel their GRE scores. This article will discuss whether it’s advisable to cancel your GRE score and what the process of sending accepted GRE scores to schools is.

To start, let’s discuss what happens once you complete your GRE.


When you finish your exam on test day (online or in-person), you have the option of accepting or canceling your GRE score. It’s important to know that these options are presented before seeing your score. So, if you decide to cancel, you won’t see your GRE score at that time.

However, you can still see the score at a later date by reinstating the score for a $50 fee. Keep in mind that the option to reinstate is available only for up to 60 days after your test date. After 60 days, you will no longer have the option to reinstate your score.

Thus, if for any reason you accidentally cancel your GRE score, no worries; you can reinstate it within the two-month window.

On the other hand, if you accept your score, you do not have the option to cancel it later. Also, if you accept and view your GRE score, you will initially see your Quant and Verbal scores. However, you will not see your Analytical Writing score, as that score will become available when your official score report is released, around 15 days later.

Now that we understand what happens at the end of your GRE, let’s review some pros and cons of canceling your GRE score.


Let’s begin with the pros of canceling your score:

Pro: Your GRE score is wiped from your score history. If you send your official score report and include all your GRE scores or your unofficial score report, then your canceled score will not be on either report.

Pro: If you decide that you need your GRE score after all, within 60 days, you have the option to reinstate the score.

Here are some cons:

Con: If you cancel your score, you will not have the opportunity to see your score, so that you could be canceling a perfectly acceptable GRE score.

Con: If you do not reinstate your score within 60 days, you will lose the option to reinstate your score.

Before discussing whether it’s a good idea to cancel your GRE score, let’s discuss your options when sending GRE scores to schools, so we can better understand when it would or would not make sense to cancel a score.


Upon completing your GRE, If you “accept” your score, then you’ll be able to view your score and send it to up to four schools for free. If, for any reason, you think you may retake the GRE, then, of course, you do not have to send your score on test day. However, if you decide to send scores on test day, using ScoreSelect, you have the following options:

— Send all scores from the last five years.

— Send only the most recent score.