Cancel GRE Scores?

Everyone that is going to take GRE General test should consider the possibility to receive negative scores after he passes the test. What if that happens to you? How you should act in that situation? Should you cancel you GRE scores, if yes how and when you should do that? These are the questions that will be clarified in this post.

So what is the GRE Score Cancellation?

On GRE each test-taker has an option to cancel the GRE scores right after the test is done, BUT before the unofficial GRE scores are shown on your screen. Meaning you have a chance to cancel your scores but only based on your feeling about overall performance on the test, not knowing for sure how much you’ve scored. So be careful, if you view your test scores after you’re done with the test, you can’t cancel them afterwards.

So when you should cancel your GRE scores?

Remember, no matter how badly you think you did on your GRE, you should never cancel the scores. A lot of students think they failed the test very bad, but that’s in majority cases the feeling caused by stress, you just can’t measure your performance immediately after taking the test, since after long and challenging test like GRE you’re too mentally exhausted to evaluate your overall performance on the test. Besides, as you may know GRE is section adaptive test, so if you got the second section harder than the previous one that is the sign that your score will be closer to the upper limits.

Another reason not to cancel your GRE scores is because of time limits you put yourself. Even if decide to cancel the scores, you’ll have to wait another 30 days before retaking the test. Also remember, you’re limited to take the GRE a maximum of five times in a continuous 12-month period. Besides, you may not catch the deadlines for admission, and that can delay your application process for even a year.

The main reason you shouldn’t cancel your GRE scores is the new option that ETS has offered the ScoreSelect, that allows test-takers to choose which GRE scores they send to each institution. Now, since you have a possibility to report your best test scores, you don’t need to cancel anything, even if you think you did pretty bad on your test.

What if you accidentally cancelled your GRE scores?

Don’t worry it’s not too late! It is possible to reinstate cancelled GRE scores for $30 fee if your request is received by ETS within 60 days after the test date.

One of the best ways to avoid feeling like you should cancel your GRE scores is to have a good practice on computer adaptive GRE tests. You should go through PowerPrep, and also you can try GREatest Prep GRE Software which also offers some tests for free.