GRE Scores for Engineering Programs

Applying to graduate school and wondering what’s the average GRE score for engineering programs? Want to know what score you need to get accepted to the best engineering schools? Unfortunately, the average scores vary greatly by school and not all schools are forthcoming with their admittance scores. Luckily for you, each year, the US News and World Report is kind enough gather whatever score data they can get from graduate schools and put it all together for us in a nifty little book and website.

For engineering programs, the report tells us the average quantitative GRE scores for admitted students in the top 100 engineering programs. Everyone knows that for engineers, math is more than a little important. While we can't exactly infer the average math scores across all programs nationwide with just this data, we can compare it to the data released by the ETS that show scores by intended major..

Average GRE Scores for engineering – accepted and aspiring

Accepted and Intended	Avg Quant Score	Percentile
Top 10 Engineering	162.8	88
#11-25 Engineering	162.1	87
#26-50 Engineering	161.8	86
#51-100 Engineering	159.8	84
Top 100 Engineering	161.2	86
Intended Applicants	158.9	79
ALL GRE test takers	151.4	50

You can see that for aspiring engineering majors, the bar is pretty high for your quantitative GRE scores. If the average for the top 100 engineering programs is 161 and the average score of all engineering program aspirants is 159, there’s not a whole lot of breathing room for the rest of the programs. But you should remember that averages include scores above and below the average, so a 157 in math won’t kill your admission chances, but it will put you behind your peers. 

Verbal score for engineering?

So where’s the verbal data? Well according to the ETS, the average verbal score for engineering aspirants is 149, which puts it right at the average for all GRE test takers. What does that mean for you? Well, while an average GRE quantitative score will put you at a major disadvantage in your application, an average verbal score will put you right in the middle of the pack. That’s not say don’t study for verbal! Definitely check with your intended schools and see what information they reveal about the weight of verbal scores. It could be that scoring in the 75th percentile puts you ahead, or it could be that only your quantitative score is important. That might ultimately be a mystery, but just keep in mind that scoring around average in verbal won’t be killer.

Average GRE scores for engineering focus

The ETS also breaks down the scores by intended engineering focus:

Engineering Focus	Verbal	Quantitative
Chemical Engineering	153	160
Civil Engineering	150	158
Electrical Engineering	148	159
Industrial Engineering	149	159
Materials Engineering	153	161
Mechanical Engineering	151	159
Other	153	159

Again, you can see there’s not a whole lot of flexibility in scores, but that’s not surprising, given the quantitative nature of engineering.

What GRE score do you need for engineering?

While there is no magic bullet score that will get you in to the best engineering schools, a quantitative score around 159 will put you in average company. Therefore, you should try to get into the 160s. Again, that’s not a ton of breathing room, but, hey, you want to be an engineer? You should probably be pretty decent at math.

How do you get a score good enough to get in?

The answer to this tough question depends on your available time and skill level in math (and verbal!). First you’ll need a good study plan, probably a math focused one.   You’ll also need some good GRE resources.