GRE Scores Stanford

Been California dreamin’? Hoping to make it into that shining pearl on the great West Coast known as Stanford University? Well, I’m guessing you know that you’ve got your work cut out for you. Getting into Stanford, no matter what the program is you’re looking at is no walk in the park. You’re going to need the right experience, the right essays, the right recs, and of course, a pretty strong GRE score. But what GRE score do you need to get into Stanford?

Stanford average GRE scores

If you’re aiming for an elite university like Stanford or Harvard, you can bet an average GRE score isn’t going to cut it. That means a 151 in Math and a 151 in Verbal isn’t going to do very much to help your application. For example, according US News & World Report, here’s a chart of the average admit scores we know for certain:

Program	Average Verbal	Average Quantitative
Engineering	161	166
Education PhD/EdD	161	156

Estimating Stanford GRE scores in other disciplines

Unfortunately, like most of the top universities, they never explicitly state the GRE scores they’re looking for with their applicants. Luckily for you, I’ve come up with up with a handy way to estimate the average GRE scores for Stanford’s top ranked programs, beyond engineering and education.

Program	US News Rank	Verbal Range	Quantitative Range
Biological Sciences	1	162-166	157-161
Chemistry	4	162-166	161-165
Computer Science	1	158-162	162-166
Earth Sciences	4	163-167	158-162
Economics	5	163-167	163-167
English	2	166-170	152-156
Fine Arts	36	157-161	151-155
History	4	165-169	152-156
Mathematics	2	163-167	165-169
Physics	1	165-169	165-169
Political Science	2	165-169	155-159
Psychology	1	161-165	152-156
Sociology	4	161-165	152-156

For information on how I derived these numbers see Methodology below. 

Dealing with the requisite high scores

So, you’re here because either you’re freaking out that your scores aren’t good enough or you’re freaking out that you’ll need some astronomical score (okay, maybe you’re just curious). I know, I know. Tough cookies. But hopefully the above chart helps offer you some guidance on what you should be aiming for!

Just keep in mind, folks, that even a 170 in math isn’t a free ticket to the School of Engineering. It’s all just a piece of the great and confounding admissions puzzle. Get into the mind of the admissions council. They want to see that you really have the brainpower to get deal with the tough level of coursework and research at Stanford. Will an average score cut it? Definitely not. But will a 159 in Verbal keep you out of the Graduate School of Education in spite of being below average? Probably not.