Cambridge Graduate needs advice! (I scored 580 in verbal on my GRE last year)

English as a Second Language Preparation forum for the GRE® Test
1

Hi everyone!

As you see from the title, I was fortunate enough to get into Cambridge on a Full scholarship. My academic background is exceptional. I want to get into the Clinical Psychology program at Harvard/Duke/Yale. Last year without any preparation I just appeared for the GRE to check how I did and followed it up with an application to one of the Ivy leagues (to justify this action, I must tell you that I was employed full-time at that time).

I am not too fussed about my verbal skills because I had a perfect score on TOEFL and I generally manage well in that area.

Quantitative however is another ballgame.

I scored around 580 in verbal and 470 in quant on my GRE last year.
I know it appears low. My question is should I just apply to the Ivy leagues this year again in the hope that my other application areas (good Recs. and academic achievement) would do the trick or should I prepare for the GRE properly and take it again?

Harvard didn’t publish any sort of soft “cut-offs” so I am clueless.
Please help! I don’t want to waste all that money and be left Harvard-less :frowning:
Thanks so much all you smart people!

2

Oh and just to add quickly, that my Analytical writing score was 5.5/6.0. I am a non-native speaker of English.
I also forgot to mention that I did not get accepted at Yale.

3

Hey Shrink,

Call Harvard – if you ask them, they should tell you their median score. I think they are required to divulge this information, as are other universities.