GRE

The GRE is the GRE General Test, a graduate admissions exam from ETS. MBA programs accept it as an alternative to the GMAT. The same score can also travel to a public-policy, economics, or PhD file, which is why career-flexible applicants often sit it once.

Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning each score from 130 to 170. Analytical Writing scores from 0 to 6. There is no official “GRE total” that business schools treat like a GMAT Total. Schools that publish a class profile usually show separate V and Q medians, or a converted figure they should not treat as science.

How it is measured

Scores are valid for five years from the test date. Stanford’s rule is typical of tight shops: the score must still be valid on the deadline of the application round you enter. ETS lets testers view scores and decide which ones to send, which changes retake strategy compared with a school that demands every sitting.

GMAC tells admissions offices not to convert GRE results into GMAT totals. Conversion tables exist in the wild. They have error bands wide enough to scramble scholarship grids. A 165Q / 161V is a pair of numbers. It is not “a 710.”

Example: an applicant targeting MBA and a fallback MPP sits the GRE, scores 164V / 162Q / 4.5 AWA, and sends that one report to both. A GMAT-only plan would have required a second exam for the MPP. If the MBA school’s class-profile median GMAT is 675 and the school refuses to publish GRE quartiles, the applicant is flying with less public data, not with a worse test.

How it differs

The GMAT is built for graduate management programs and now includes a Data Insights section in the total. The GRE keeps a scored essay on the main exam; the current GMAT does not. A test waiver skips both. Neither test is an achievement exam for awarding the degree.

Common errors

Adding V and Q and treating 330 as a GMAT-like total. Using an online converter to pick a school list. Letting a GRE from 2019 die before an R2 deadline in 2026.