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Last Updated on March 8, 2024
One of the burning questions from GRE students is whether to view or cancel their GRE scores. This article will discuss whether it’s advisable to cancel your GRE score and what the process of sending accepted GRE scores to schools is.
Here are the topics we’ll cover:
- I Just Finished My GRE — Now What?
- The Pros and Cons of Canceling Your GRE Score
- How GRE Scores Are Sent to Schools
- The Final Verdict: Should I Cancel My GRE Score?
- Key Takeaways: Should I Cancel My GRE Score?
- What’s Next?
To start, let’s discuss what happens once you complete your GRE.
I Just Finished My GRE — Now What?
When you finish your exam on test day (online or in-person), you have the option of accepting or canceling your GRE score. It’s important to know that these options are presented before seeing your score. So, if you decide to cancel, you won’t see your GRE score at that time.
However, you can still see the score at a later date by reinstating the score for a $50 fee. Keep in mind that the option to reinstate is available only for up to 60 days after your test date. After 60 days, you will no longer have the option to reinstate your score.
Thus, if for any reason you accidentally cancel your GRE score, no worries; you can reinstate it within the two-month window.
KEY FACT:
If you cancel your GRE score, you can reinstate it within 60 days.
On the other hand, if you accept your score, you do not have the option to cancel it later. Also, if you accept and view your GRE score, you will initially see your Quant and Verbal scores. However, you will not see your Analytical Writing score, as that score will become available when your official score report is released, around 8-10 days later.
Now that we understand what happens at the end of your GRE, let’s review some pros and cons of canceling your GRE score.
The Pros and Cons of Canceling Your GRE Score
Let’s begin with the pros of canceling your score:
Pro: Your GRE score is wiped from your score history. If you send your official score report and include all your GRE scores or your unofficial score report, then your canceled score will not be on either report.
Pro: If you decide that you need your GRE score after all, within 60 days, you have the option to reinstate the score.
Here are some cons:
Con: If you cancel your score, you will not have the opportunity to see your score, so that you could be canceling a perfectly acceptable GRE score.
Con: If you do not reinstate your score within 60 days, you will lose the option to reinstate your score.
Before discussing whether it’s a good idea to cancel your GRE score, let’s discuss your options when sending GRE scores to schools, so we can better understand when it would or would not make sense to cancel a score.
How GRE Scores Are Sent to Schools
Upon completing your GRE, If you “accept” your score, then you’ll be able to view your score and send it to up to four schools for free. If, for any reason, you think you may retake the GRE, then, of course, you do not have to send your score on test day. However, if you decide to send scores on test day, using ScoreSelect, you have the following options:
— Send all scores from the last five years.
— Send only the most recent score.
KEY FACT:
The ScoreSelect option on test day allows you to send either all of your GRE scores or only the score from that day.
If you want even more flexibility, you can wait to send your scores after test day. However, remember that you will have to pay $30 per score recipient when sending your scores later.
When sending your scores after test day, using ScoreSelect, you have the following options:
— Send all scores from the last five years.
— Send any scores from the previous five years.
— Send your most recent score.
So, as you can see, sending your scores after test day gives you the flexibility to send any GRE score from the last five years.
KEY FACT:
If you send your scores after test day, the ScoreSelect option gives you a third option: to send any GRE scores that you choose.
So, now that we understand the details of sending GRE scores to schools let’s discuss whether we should ever cancel GRE scores.
The Final Verdict: Should I Cancel My GRE Score?
Based on what we’ve discussed in this article, it may seem obvious that there is no reason to cancel your GRE score. After all, if you send your score after test day, you have the option to send JUST the GRE score(s) of your choosing. So, given that flexibility, most would assume that there would never be a reason to cancel a GRE score.
However, there is one loophole that you should consider. In addition to requiring your official GRE score report, some graduate programs will require that you send an “unofficial score report.” This score report is essentially a screenshot or PDF of the test page in your ETS account, and it will contain all of your GRE scores. In other words, you do not have the option to select which GRE scores to show before taking the screenshot. Not all schools require this unofficial GRE score, but some do.
For example, the PhD program in psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago explicitly states that “the application requires an uploaded copy of the unofficial GRE score report from ETS. Likewise, if you’re applying for a PhD in Biology and Neuroscience at Florida Atlantic University, you must include your “unofficial GRE score report.”
Thus, before taking your GRE, it would not hurt to research the schools to which you plan to apply to see whether they require your unofficial score report. If you cannot find the information on the school’s website, then give the folks in admissions a call to get confirmation.
So, what is our verdict? If you can confirm that you will not have to send any unofficial GRE score reports and are pretty confident that you did not bomb your GRE, then there is no reason to cancel your GRE score.
TTP PRO TIP:
Unless your graduate program requires that you send an unofficial score report, there is no reason to cancel your GRE score.
Key Takeaways: Should I Cancel My GRE Score?
To sum up, here are the key things to know about canceling your GRE score:
- On test day, you have the option to cancel your score before seeing it.
- If you later decide you want to see the score, you have 60 days to pay the $50 score reinstatement fee.
- If you accept your score on test day, you cannot cancel it afterwards.
- Before deciding to cancel your GRE score, weigh the pros and cons.
- In most cases, there is no reason to cancel your GRE score.
What’s Next?
Learn how to decide if you should retake the GRE and reasons your GRE score may not have matched your practice test scores.
