Average GRE Scores for top MS Universities in USA

Good GRE score for Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley

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Some common questions we get from international applicants:

What are the average GRE score for an MS in USA for Engineering, Computer Science, Maths, Education etc?
What’s a good GRE score for top U.S. universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, UCLA?
What’s a good GRE score range?

Read on to find answers to these questions.

If you’re planning to get into a top graduate program in the US, you would be aware of the importance of a good GRE score in the application process. Often applicants are curious to know what a good score would be to get into a particular graduate school of their choice. The GRE scores would differ depending upon the school you choose. Again, within a particular university / school, it would vary depending upon the field you select.

The mean GRE scores for some disciplines as per ETS data are given below:

Average GRE Scores for Masters degree in USA

	Masters Degree	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
1.	Business	151	156
2.	Social sciences	153	152
3.	Physical sciences	151	160
4.	Life sciences	151	151
5.	Arts and humanities	156	150

Though the above table represents the mean scores across various schools, the average GRE score for the top ranked schools tend to be much higher. Let’s see how much the average GRE score varies depending upon the school or the program you wish to apply to.
[Note: Many schools have relaxed the GRE requirement during the Covid pandemic. The scores represented are historical trends from the years before.]

Average GRE Scores for MS in Engineering

	University Name	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
1.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (No longer a requirement during Covid)	162	167
2.	Harvard	80 to 85th percentile – 158 to 160	80 to 85th percentile – 163 to 166
3.	Stanford	162	168
4.	University of California-Berkeley (No longer a requirement during Covid)	157	165
5.	University of Pennsylvania (No longer a requirement during Covid)	155	166
6.	Princeton (No longer a requirement during Covid)	162	166
7.	Yale	155	167
8.	Carnegie Mellon University	153	163
9.	University of Southern California	151	166
10.	UCLA	158	168
11.	Cornell	153	160
12.	Columbia University (No longer a requirement during Covid)	155	166

Average GRE Scores for MS in Computer Science

	University name	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
1.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (No longer a requirement during Covid)	160	164
2.	Harvard	160	164
3.	Stanford	162	166
4.	University of California-Berkeley (No longer a requirement during Covid)	160	164
5.	University of Pennsylvania	159	168
6.	Princeton (No longer a requirement during Covid)	164	167
7.	Yale	162	166
8.	University of Southern California (Not required during Covid. Will resume in 2022)	155	161
9.	UCLA (Covid update: GRE Requirement for Fall 2022-2023 Admissions Cycle Only)	155	161
10.	Cornell	160	164
11.	Columbia University (Not required during Covid. Will resume in 2022)	155	161

Average GRE Scores for MS in Psychology

	University name	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
1.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (GRE not required)	163	154
2.	Harvard (GRE is optional)	163	154
3.	Stanford (Not required)	163	154
4.	University of California-Berkeley	163	160
5.	University of Pennsylvania	158	151
6.	Princeton (Not required)	165	168
7.	Yale (Not required for Fall 2021. Expected to resume in 2022)	163	154
8.	University of Southern California (Not required for Fall 2021. Expected to resume in 2022)	158	151
9.	UCLA	163	154
10.	Cornell (Not required in 2021 application process)	158	151
11.	Columbia University (Not required until Fall 2022)	Combined score >310	Combined score >310

Average GRE Scores for MS in Physics

	University name	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
1.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Not required during Covid. Will resume in 2022)	167	167
2.	Harvard (Not required during Covid. May resume in 2022)	167	167
3.	Stanford (Not required during Covid. May resume in 2022)	167	167
4.	University of California-Berkeley (Not accepting General GRE for Fall 2022. May resume in 2023. Subject GRE is optional)	167	167
5.	University of Pennsylvania	162	164
6.	Princeton (For 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 applications, both General GRE and Subject GRE are optional	168	170
7.	Yale	162	164
8.	University of Southern California (No GRE required during Covid)	159	162
9.	UCLA (No GRE required)	162	164
10.	Cornell (Not required for 2022 admissions)	167	167
11.	Columbia University	162	164

Average GRE Scores for MS in Chemistry

	University name	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
1.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Not required during Covid. Will resume in 2022)	164	163
2.	Harvard (GRE not required/optional)	164	163
3.	Stanford (Not required during Covid. May resume in 2022)	164	163
4.	University of California-Berkeley (Not required during Covid. May resume in 2023)	164	163
5.	University of Pennsylvania (Not required but recommended for Physical Chemistry applications)	159	160
6.	Princeton (Not required but recommended)	164	168
7.	Yale (Not required during Covid)	159	160
8.	University of Southern California (No GRE required during Covid)	156	158
9.	UCLA	158-160	161-163
10.	Cornell (Not required for 2022 admissions)	164	163
11.	Columbia University	164	163

Average GRE Scores for MS in Mathematics

	University Name	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
1.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Not required during Covid. Will resume in 2022)	165	167
2.	Harvard (General GRE not required. Subject GRE required)	165	167
3.	Stanford (Admission to PhD only. Master’s not offered to applicants from outside Stanford)	165	167
4.	University of California-Berkeley (Not required during Covid. May resume in 2023)	165	167
5.	University of Pennsylvania	160	164
6.	Princeton (Not accepted for Fall 2022)	168	168
7.	Yale	165	167
8.	University of Southern California	157	162
9.	UCLA (Not required for 2022 admissions)	165	167
10.	Cornell (Not required for 2022 admissions)	160	164
11.	Columbia University	165	167

Average GRE Scores for MS in Education

	University Name	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
1.	Harvard	163	158
2.	Stanford	161	156
3.	University of California-Berkeley	159	152
4.	University of Pennsylvania	162	156
5.	University of South California	161	154
6.	UCLA	158	152
7.	Columbia University	158	153
8.	Northwestern University	161	153

Data Source: Individual school websites, U.S. News, Magoosh, PrepScholar, Prodigy

The GRE verbal and quantitative sections are scored on a scale of 130-170 in one-point increment in each of the two sections. You can score anywhere from 130 to 170 which means that the number of possible scores that can be obtained are limited to just 41. This range means that even a small jump in your GRE score can give a boost to your percentile ranking.

To read more on how GRE score percentile changes as per your scaled score, check out this GRE score percentile table.

Some programs like engineering put greater emphasis on the quantitative score whereas there’s lesser focus on the verbal score. So, applicants aiming for a top engineering college need to come up with a competitive quantitative score while you may work on getting a good verbal score as well.

The reverse is true for fields like psychology, arts and humanities where you’d need to have a good verbal score.

What’s a good GRE score range?

The GRE score forms an important component of the application process. However, you also need to remember, it’s not just the GRE score that matters; there are other components of the application that would be taken in to account. An impressive undergrad score, work experience or extracurriculars would help, and then there are your letters of recommendation as well as your SOP (Statement of Purpose) that can contribute to building a strong application.

As discussed before, there’s no perfect answer to what your GRE score should be to get into a particular program as each school you apply to would have their own averages. So, you’d need to check with the university where you wish to apply to see what the average GRE scores have been for the previous years.

The ETS provides test statistics (test percentage distribution of scores) for different fields for the entire range of scores candidates obtain over a three year period in each of the GRE sections. We’ve arranged this GRE score range (applies to both the verbal and quantitative sections) and provided ratings based on the general perception of what a good or not-so-good GRE score would be.

	GRE score range	Ratings
1.	165-170	Excellent
2.	155-164	Very good
3.	150-154	Good
4.	140-149	Needs improvement
5.	130-139	Poor

Average and Good GRE Scores for top MS universities in USA