A 316 sits just above the average for most graduate fields. That makes it workable, and it makes the next few points unusually cheap.
A 316 will not get an application rejected on its own. Whether it helps depends entirely on the programme, and on which of your two sections is carrying the total.
Above average and workable. A 316 clears the reported average in 8 of the 8 fields ETS tracks.
Nobody at a graduate department opens your report and looks for 316. They look for the section their programme cares about, and that number is not visible from the total.
The consequence is dramatic at this total. Across the realistic ways of reaching a 316, the published section percentiles run from the 14th all the way to the 99th. Same number on the score report; completely different applications.
Balanced, a 316 is 158 Verbal and 158 Quant — the 77th and 45th 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.
Whatever you are applying to, the field average is below you. The top of the table is Physical Sciences at 314; a 316 clears it with room.
The averages tell you where the middle of a discipline sits, which is useful right up to the point you pick specific departments. After that, only their published numbers matter.
Improving from a 316 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 316. 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.
Five minutes of due diligence: put each half of your 316 through the GRE percentile calculator and check the weaker one against your discipline's average rather than against the other section.
Check your section percentilesThis is a real decision rather than an obvious one. A 316 is close enough to the field averages that a few points changes which side of them you are on, and close enough that those points are gettable.
Get your discipline's two averages, line them up against your two scores, and let the bigger gap decide whether to book and what to study.
Decide which section to push before booking anything. Adding points to the section your field actually reads is worth several times as much as adding them to the other one.
The reported engineering average is 313, so a 316 is above it — but those programmes read Quant closely, so check that half against the 163 field average.
Split, usually. A department in a quantitative field is reading one number, and across the ways of building a 316 that number ranges from the 14th to the 99th percentile.
There isn't one for the total — ETS percentiles each section and never the sum. Built as 158 Verbal and 158 Quant, the published figures are the 77th and 45th.
Comfortably. Every graduate field ETS publishes an average for reports a total below 316.