How About the GRE and the IELTS?

In previous posts, I wrote you could take the GRE instead of the GMAT, and the IELTS instead of the TOEFL.

Well, I did actually take all those tests: GMAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS. But I spent much more time with the GMAT than with the GRE, and also with the TOEFL instead of the IELTS. So, I don't feel prepared to write much about the GRE and the IELTS. But there are a few things I would like to point out.

I regret not paying enough attention to the GRE. For business schools, the GMAT is more traditional and more widely accepted, so it seemed logical to me to focus on the GMAT. But the number of business schools accepting the GRE for their PhD programs is really big nowadays. Your preparation for the GMAT will be useful for the GRE too, with few adjustments. They are different, but they test almost the same things.

I recommend you take both the GMAT and the GRE, and then see which one is your best score to include in your application. You can send them both, if you wish.

But the main reason I recommend taking the GRE is the percentiles in score. Just like the GMAT, you get not only the score, but a percentile which shows the percentage of test takers who score below you. And the percentile for the Quantitative section of the GMAT has changed too much in the last years. Now, the only way to get a Quant score above 90% in the GMAT is if you get a perfect score of 51. However, according to the 2016-17 GRE Guide, you can be above 90% anything between 166 and 170 in the GRE Quant section. And it just happens that the Quant section of the GRE is considered easier by many people than the corresponding section of the GMAT. So, with less mathematical skill you can get a higher Quant percentile at the GRE. So, it's easier to make your application look stronger in the quant section using the GRE than usingh the GMAT.

Why can you get a higher percentile with less skill with the GRE? I think the answer lies in the difference between the people who take the GRE and the people who take the GMAT. The GMAT is only for business schools. And business schools (MBA mostly) draw a lo of applicants who are extremely strong in Mathematics. Engineers and economists, for example. From countries like China, South Korea, and India, for example. So, it's really hard to get a Quant score better than those people. The GRE, however, is used for graduate programs in general, not only business. People who apply to a PhD in Literature or Arts, for example, take the GRE too. And those applicants are usually not so strong in the Quant section. So, it is easier to get a Quant score better than them.

Ok, that's only valid for the Quantitative Section. Not necessarily the Verbal section. But, I think the Verbal sections of both the GMAT and the GRE are hard for people in general, although the GRE demands a better vocabulary. And, for many business PhD programs, they are more worried about your Quant skill than your Verbal skill.

So, that's what I wanted to write about the GRE.

Now, the IELTS. If you are an international applicant, you should focus on the TOEFL if your interest is doing a PhD in the US. The reason is that it seems all schools accept the TOEFL, but many do not accept the IELTS (which is stronger in Europe). But, if your TOEFL score is not that great, the IELTS may be an alternative for some schools.

As I wrote before, my scores for the listening, reading, and writing sections of the TOEFL were very good. But my score for the speaking section was lower, only 23. And there were schools which demanded at least a score of 25 in each section, So, my total score of 110 was great, but my speaking score was not enough. In those cases, I was able to sent my IELTS score instead of my TOEFL. Because I like the speaking section of the IELTS a lot more than the TOEFL's. In the TOEFL, you talk to a computer recorder using a mike. In the IELTS, you have a real conversation with a real person in front of you. I think it's much better to show if I can talk in English or not.

TOEFL in My PhD Application

Since I'm not from an English-speaking country, schools require an additional test for that language. There are two main tests which may be used for that purpose, the TOEFL and the IELTS. I used my TOEFL score for most of my applications.

The TOEFL is a test which takes about 4 hours and evaluates your English proficiency in 4 sections: Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing. You get a score which range from 0 to 30 for each section, so you can get a total score between 0 and 120 when adding all four sections.

The minimum score you need to get depends on the school. There are school with minimum total score requirements. There are schools with minimum requirements for specific sections.

In order to have a TOEFL report which can probably be used for any school, your total score should be at least 105, with at least 25 in each section.

It seems to me that, once you meet the school's minimum requirements for the TOEFL, they don't worry much about it anymore. So, if a schools only requires a minimum score of 100, it will not make much of a difference if you get 110 or 115, for example. So, contrary to the GMAT, trying to get a perfect score in the TOEFL will not really improve the strength of your application that much.

Also contrary to the GMAT, I did not spend so much time preparing for the TOEFL. But that's because I use English everyday in my life. Almost every book I read is in English, and it has been that way for 25 years. I had a job where I had to write in English every day, for hours and hours. When I watch a movie, I usually watch it in English. I got a perfect score of 30 in listening, 29 in reading, and 28 in writing. But I got a lower score of 23 in speaking, since I don't really have much of a chance to talk in English often enough. And I must say that the English section of the TOEFL is awful. You don't speak with a person, you just answer stupid questions into a mike in a way that does not feel natural at all.

If you are already good in English, just take some time to learn the details about how the test is structured, what kind of questions they ask. Please notice that, even if there are 4 distinct sections, one section may require skill from another section. The writing section asks you to write about something you listened to, for example. So, if you aren't good at listening, you may not be able to really understand hat you should write about.