Chris Swimmer

GRE Scores for Education Programs

Each year, more and more educators decide to bolster their credentials and expand their teaching reach. For many primary and secondary schools, a masters degree is already a requirement for the job. And naturally deep down all educators (myself humbly included on that list) want to change the face of education in some form or another. Naturally to get into these programs, you’ve almost always got to take the GRE. So what score will you need to get in?

First, let’s look at the intended majors.
 

Education GRE Scores by Intended Major

Verbal Quantitative AWA
All 151 148 3.8
Administration 151 148 3.7
Curriculum and Instruction 151 149 3.8
Early Childhood 147 146 3.4
Elementary 149 147 3.7
Evaluation and Research 151 148 3.8
Higher 152 149 4.0
Secondary 154 151 4.0
Special 148 145 3.5
Student Counseling and Personnel Services 149 146 3.6
Other 152 151 3.8
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The scores above are intended majors. What does “intended” major mean? It simply means that that these are the average scores of people planning on applying to graduate school in a specific major.
 

Average GRE Scores for Education (Accepted and Aspiring)

The US News and World Report is kind enough to produce data on the top graduate programs in education. I’ve culled the PhD score data from the report and reproduced it below in an easy-to-read format.

Average GRE Scores by Program Ranking

Accepted and Intended Avg. Verbal Score Percentile Avg. Quantitative Score Percentile
Top 10 160 85th 156 59th
#11-25 156 72nd 153 48th
#26-50 155 67th 152

44th
#51-100 153 59th 149 33rd
Top 100 155 67th 151 50th
Intended Education Applicants 151 50th 148 29th
All GRE Test-Takers 150 45th 154 51st


Naturally, for masters’ programs, the scores are a point or two lower in each section. 🙂
 

What Can We Take Away from Education Programs’ Average GRE Scores?

As expected, if you’re aiming for an upper tier education program, a good GRE score for you is going to be different than if your desired program just squeaked into the top 100. For the top schools, your verbal reasoning score, especially, would need to be 9 points about the typical education aspirant in order meet the average intake for a top 10 program.

So if you’re considering, say, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, or Stanford, make sure you’ve got the right scores to make the cut. Also, don’t forget that the GRE isn’t the only factor considered when assessing your application. There’s a lot to be considered and so even if you have an average or above average score for your desired program, that doesn’t guarantee admission!
 

Author

  • Chris Swimmer

    Chris Swimmer is an analyst at Magoosh who divides his time between marketing and research projects and helping folks out with their math hang ups while studying for the GRE and the GMAT. Follow him on Google+! And you can follow him @chrisrswimmer on Twitter.

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