by tommywallach Sat Jul 12, 2014 9:05 am
Hey Signup,
Everything here depends very specifically on the schools and programs in question. You need to call the admissions departments and ask them, because nobody can know other than the folks in charge of handling acceptances.
That being said, I would say two things:
1) Unless a school says that a certain score is a "minimum," having a slightly lower score is not going to be grounds for immediate dismissal of your application. They will consider every aspect of your application before making a decision.
2) If you are going to get away with having a slightly lower score, there needs to be something about your application that is above average (i.e. a better GPA than the average applicant, more or more interesting work experience than the average applicant, a better "narrative/personal history" than the average applicant, etc.). If nothing about you stands out relative to other applicants, than your below-average GRE score might just be reason enough to reject your application.
Good luck (and go call those schools!).
-t