What’s a Good GRE® Score?

A good GRE® score is one that’s competitive at the programs you’re applying to. That might sound evasive, but it’s genuinely the only useful answer. The same score can be outstanding for a graduate program in one field, and unremarkable for another.

If you’re looking for a starting point, here’s what the average test taker scores, what different fields tend to look for, and how to turn all of that into a target for your own studies.

If you’re looking for a definitive overview of the GRE®, visit our complete guide on GRE® basics.

The Average GRE® Score

Across everyone who took the GRE® between 2022 and 2025, ETS reports these averages:

Source: ETS GRE® General Test Interpretive Data. Percentile approximations from the same document’s Table 1B.

Those averages are a useful anchor, but they also cause a lot of confusion. The verbal and quant scales aren’t truly comparable, so scoring “above average” on each means hitting very different numbers.

Why You Can’t Compare Your Verbal and Quant Scores

Here’s something that might surprise you: 160 on Verbal Reasoning is the 82nd percentile, while a 160 on Quantitative Reasoning is the 50th.

So if your score report reads 158V and 158Q, those numbers may look balanced, but you could argue that they aren’t. The verbal score is at the 76th percentile and the quant score is at the 45th. Our full percentile chart has the number for every score on both measures, and it’s worth a look before you judge your own results.

What Score Does Your Field Expect?

ETS also publishes average scores by intended field of graduate study, which is a better starting point than the overall average:

Source: ETS, Interpreting Your GRE® Scores 2026-27, Table 2. Based on seniors and non-enrolled college graduates who tested between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2025.

For a more granular version of this table, see ETS’s Interpretive Data by Graduate Major Field document. Please note, these averages are calculated based on everyone who intends to study in a field, not admitted-student averages at competitive programs, which often run higher.

The biggest takeaway from this chart: average quant and verbal scores vary considerably by field. Law and social sciences applicants tend to be stronger on verbal, while physical sciences and engineering applicants are often better on quant. In other words, a “good” GRE score means different things in different areas of study.

How to Set Your Own Target

Global averages will only take you so far. Here’s the process we recommend:

1. List three to five graduate programs you’re seriously considering.
2. Find their published GRE® data. Many programs post average or median scores for admitted students, sometimes broken out by section. Departmental pages often have more detail than the graduate school’s main admissions page.
3. Note which section they emphasize. An applied mathematics program usually cares far more about quant than verbal, and the reverse is true for a comparative literature program. This will help determine where your study hours should go.
4. Adjust for the rest of your application. If factors such as your research experience, GPA, or letters of recommendation are unusually strong, you’re probably fine with a score that’s at or slightly below the median. If your profile has major weaknesses, you might need to aim for a higher score.

If a program doesn’t publish score data (and plenty don’t) it’s entirely reasonable to email the admissions office and ask. Don’t be shy about it: asking the question may save you dozens of hours of studying.

What About a Perfect Score?

You almost certainly don’t need one. A 170 in verbal is the 99th percentile and a 170 in quant is the 89th, and while both are impressive, no admissions committee requires perfection in both sections. Chasing a flawless score is one of the more common ways applicants lose months they could have spent elsewhere.