How GRE scoring works

How Verbal and Quant are scored

Your score is based on how many questions you get right in both sections of a measure, and how hard those questions were. Because the second section adapts to how you did on the first, there’s no simple chart turning a number right into a score.

Wrong answers don’t cost you anything extra. Never leave a question blank. If you answer no questions at all in a measure, you get NS (No Score) for it.

How the essay is scored

The essay is scored on a 6-point scale for its overall quality, and part of that score comes from ETS’s e-rater scoring engine. ETS publishes the scoring guide and sample essays. Spell check isn’t available, but only serious, frequent errors pull your score down.

When you see your scores

• At the end of the test, if you choose to report your scores, you see your unofficial Verbal and Quant scores straight away.
• Official scores, including the essay, arrive in your ETS account about 8 to 10 days later and go to your chosen schools.
• You can cancel your scores instead, at the end of the test. Canceled scores can be reinstated within 60 days for $50.

ScoreSelect: choosing what schools see

On test day you can send scores to up to four schools free. For those, choose Most Recent (this test only) or All (every test in the last five years), or send nothing yet.

After test day, extra score reports cost $40 each, and you can choose Most Recent, All or Any: whichever test dates you like. Each test is sent whole, so you can’t mix Verbal from one day with Quant from another. Some programs ask for every score, so check first.

Percentiles

Your report shows a percentile beside each score: the share of test takers who scored lower, based on people who tested in the previous three years. For July 2022 to June 2025, a 160 was at the 82nd percentile in Verbal and the 50th in Quant. A 4.0 essay was at the 63rd percentile.