Chris Swimmer

USC GRE Scores

Usc_football_logo USC GRE scores
When most people think about the University of Southern California, one thing comes to mind: football! But USC is a whole lot more than its elite sports programs. Found in sunny southern California (surprise!), the school is also the home of stellar graduate programs that deserve at least as much attention as its football team!

So what will it take to get into USC grad programs? First of all, you’ll need great GRE scores–preferably those that fall into the middle 50% or higher of USC GRE scores for those recently admitted into their programs. Read on to see what you’ll need to make the cut!

 

Average GRE scores for USC – Engineering and Education

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Engineering and Education program hopefuls are in luck: these two programs provide actual GRE scores for USC admits to US News & World Report every year. This means that you can find out exactly what types of scores will help–or hurt–your application.

With that in mind, here’s the US News & World Report data on the Engineering and Education programs at USC:

Program Average Verbal Scores for Admitted Students Average Quantitative Scores for Admitted Students
Engineering – Master’s 152 165
Engineering – PhD 154 167
Education – Master’s 152 156
Education – PhD 153 157

 

Estimating USC GRE Scores in Other Disciplines

If you’re not looking to apply for Education or Engineering programs at USC, are you out of luck when it comes to finding a GRE score range for USC? Not at all!

Although USC only provides concrete GRE score ranges for admits from Engineering and Education, we’ve been able to use these scores and the programs’ rankings to come up with score ranges for other USC programs. Are these scores precise? No, but they’re great estimates to use when setting your GRE goals. Take a look at where your program falls in the grand scheme of USC GRE scores:

Program US News Rank Estimated Verbal Range Estimated Quantitative Range
Biological Sciences 46 152-156 152-156
Chemistry 46 155-159 159-163
Computer Science 24 153-157 164-168
Earth Sciences 33 156-160 156-160
Economics 38 157-161 164-168
English 32 159-163 152-156
Fine Arts 53 156-160 151-155
History 38 158-162 151-155
Mathematics 37 156-160 166-170
Physics 55 155-159 160-164
Psychology 35 154-158 151-155
Public Administration 4 159-163 159-163
Social Work 72 149-153 145-149
Sociology 34 156-160 153-157

To find out how these GRE scores stack up, take a look at GRE percentile rankings.

Resources to Get the GRE Scores You’ll Need for USC

Need more help preparing for the GRE? Check out the following links:

Notes about Comments

While I’d love to give everyone some kind of hard and fast number for your chances (it’s a nerve wracking, opaque experience, I know), I unfortunately can’t. This is because there are numerous factors involved in the admissions decisions and most of those factors aren’t the GRE. The best I can do is tell you below/at/above the score range, but that information you can see for yourself above. My universal recommendation is that you check where you stand compared to the tables above. Then have a look at the forums to see student experiences. Good luck! 🙂

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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