A 320 is above every field average ETS publishes. This page is about which programmes that actually opens, and where the split matters most.
A 320 is above the average admitted score in every field ETS publishes data for. That sounds decisive, and it mostly is, with one caveat: the field averages differ enough that "above average" means something different in engineering than it does in the humanities.
Yes. A 320 is above the average admitted score in all 8 fields ETS reports, and a balanced split puts you around the 84th percentile on Verbal and the 50th on Quant.
Whatever you are applying to, the field average is below you. The top of the table is Physical Sciences at 314; a 320 clears it with room.
A field average is a blunt instrument: it blends elite departments with open-enrolment ones. Use it to see whether your score is in the conversation, then look up the two or three programmes you actually care about.
The total is a convenience, not a measurement. ETS scores Verbal and Quant separately and never publishes a combined percentile — a point our GRE percentile calculator makes at length.
The consequence is dramatic at this total. Across the realistic ways of reaching a 320, the published section percentiles run from the 24th all the way to the 99th. Same number on the score report; completely different applications.
Balanced, a 320 is 160 Verbal and 160 Quant — the 84th and 50th 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.
Probably not. A 320 is above every published field average, and ETS shows programmes your full score history under ScoreSelect unless you choose otherwise. Retaking to move a number that is already doing its job is a poor trade.
Check for one thing before deciding: a weak section in the discipline you are applying to. That is the only version of this that justifies another sitting.
Five minutes of due diligence: put each half of your 320 through the GRE percentile calculator and check the weaker one against your discipline's average rather than against the other section.
Check your section percentilesCompare your split against the field averages rather than your total against a rule of thumb. That is the difference between knowing a 320 is good and knowing it is good for you.
Anything summing to 320, from 150V/170Q at one extreme to 170V/150Q at the other. Evenly, that is 160 and 160.
Only for a lopsided split. If the half your discipline cares about lags its field average, retake that section's preparation rather than the whole test.
The reported engineering average is 313, so a 320 is above it — but those programmes read Quant closely, so check that half against the 163 field average.
The total is mostly an administrative convenience. What varies — and what gets read — is the section score, which at a 320 can sit anywhere from the 24th to the 99th percentile.