A 304 is a little under the average for most graduate fields. The gap is small enough that a focused retake usually closes it.
Nothing about a 304 is disqualifying, but it is doing none of the work either. The useful framing is how few points separate it from a score that helps.
Not quite. A 304 is under the reported average in 7 of 8 fields, but the shortfall is small.
Improving from a 304 is a targeting problem before it is an effort problem. Points are not equally valuable across the two sections, and they are not equally cheap either.
Percentile-wise the Quant section is the weaker half of a balanced 304. Points bought there tend to go further, because fewer people are stacked at each scaled score.
Practically: quant drills or verbal drills depending on which half you picked, a two-month plan so it has an end date, and full timed tests to check it is holding under pressure.
Here is the thing most pages about a 304 get wrong: it is not one score. ETS reports Verbal and Quant separately, publishes a percentile for each, and publishes nothing at all for the sum. A committee reads the two halves.
The consequence is dramatic at this total. Across the realistic ways of reaching a 304, the published section percentiles run from the 1th all the way to the 99th. Same number on the score report; completely different applications.
Balanced, a 304 is 152 Verbal and 152 Quant — the 48th and 29th percentile. Notice they are not close. Quant is compressed at the top because so many test takers do well on it, so an identical scaled score is worth far less in percentile terms there.
Work out where the points are cheapest before you spend a month on them. Feed both section scores into the GRE percentile calculator and the weaker half of a 304 becomes obvious immediately.
Open the percentile calculatorSorted by field rather than by percentile, a 304 is above average in Education and below it in Biological Sciences, Business. Those averages span about thirteen points, which is why a single verdict on a GRE total is impossible.
Treat those averages as orientation, not thresholds. They are means across everyone who reported a score in that discipline, which mixes together programmes with very different expectations.
Yes, once you have changed how you prepare. A 304 is below every field average, so there is a concrete reason to sit again — but repeating the test without repairing the weaker section reproduces the score.
Book the date far enough out that the preparation can actually change something, and decide in advance which half you are fixing. Our retake guide has the scheduling.
Pick the weaker section and drill it specifically. Split-focused retakes at this level are the ones that move the number.
Engineering averages 313, so a 304 is 9 short. The Quant half matters more than the gap in the total.
Split, usually. A department in a quantitative field is reading one number, and across the ways of building a 304 that number ranges from the 1th to the 99th percentile.
There isn't one for the total — ETS percentiles each section and never the sum. Built as 152 Verbal and 152 Quant, the published figures are the 48th and 29th.
For some fields yes, others no. 1 of the eight ETS reports sit at or below a 304; Biological Sciences at 306 is the closest one above.