A 322 is above every field average ETS publishes. This page is about which programmes that actually opens, and where the split matters most.
A 322 does the job. The reason this page keeps going is that the total hides the thing committees actually read — your two section scores, which ETS reports separately and percentiles separately.
Yes. A 322 is above the average admitted score in all 8 fields ETS reports, and a balanced split puts you around the 86th percentile on Verbal and the 53th on Quant.
Every field ETS reports sits below a 322 — the highest of them, Physical Sciences, averages 314. There is no discipline where this total reads as weak.
Do not treat any of these as a cut-off. A field average is a description of who applied, not a rule about who gets in, and every discipline admits well below its own mean.
A 322 is a sum, and admissions committees do not read sums. They read a Verbal score with its own percentile and a Quant score with its own, which is why two applicants with identical totals can look nothing alike.
Run through the ways of assembling a 322 and the section percentiles swing from the 29th to the 99th. A committee sees where you actually landed in that swing; the total does not.
Take the even split, 161 and 161. Same number twice, 86th percentile on one section and 53th on the other. Anyone comparing their two scaled scores directly is comparing different rulers.
Probably not. A 322 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.
There is a single scenario worth the trouble — your field reads one section closely and that section is behind. Otherwise the score is finished.
A total hides the two numbers programmes read. Run your Verbal and Quant through the GRE percentile calculator to see the published percentile for each, then compare those against your field rather than comparing 322 against a rule of thumb.
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 322 is good and knowing it is good for you.
The reported engineering average is 313, so a 322 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 322 that number ranges from the 29th to the 99th percentile.
The honest answer is that a total percentile does not exist. Your two halves do: 86th and 53th respectively on a balanced 322.
Comfortably. Every graduate field ETS publishes an average for reports a total below 322.