How Good is a 327 on the GRE?

A 327 is comfortably competitive almost everywhere. Whether it is competitive at your specific programme depends on which half of it is doing the work.

Most people who reach a 327 stop studying, and that is usually right. What is worth ten more minutes is checking the split, because a quantitative programme reads your Quant score and largely ignores the total.

The short answer

Good, with one thing to check. A 327 beats every published field average; whether it beats your field's expectation on the section they care about depends on your split.

Move the split, keep the total
Every setting below adds up to 327. Watch what happens to the percentiles.
Verbal
164 · 93rd
Quant
163 · 60th
Total
327
Shape
balanced

A 327 against your field

A 327 against average scores by field
Physical Sciences314 · 153V/161QEngineering313 · 150V/163QComputer Science313 · 150V/163QSocial Sciences307 · 155V/152QArts & Humanities307 · 157V/150QBiological Sciences306 · 153V/153QBusiness306 · 151V/155QEducation301 · 152V/149Qyour 327
Each dot is the average total (Verbal + Quant) reported for that graduate field; the dashed line is a 327. Field averages are ETS interpretive data, also published on what counts as a good GRE score.

No discipline in the ETS tables averages as high as a 327. Physical Sciences comes closest at 314, and it is still well short.

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 327 is not one score

The same 327, built five ways
157V / 170Qquant-heavy7391161V / 166Qbalanced8671164V / 163Qbalanced9360167V / 160Qverbal-heavy9850170V / 157Qverbal-heavy9942Verbal percentileQuant percentile
Each row is a Verbal/Quant split that adds up to 327, with the percentile ETS publishes for each half. The totals are identical; the applications are not. Percentiles come from the tables behind our GRE percentile calculator.

A 327 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.

At a 327 the spread is enormous: depending on how the points are distributed, one of your sections could sit anywhere from the 42th to the 99th percentile. That is the range a single total is hiding.

Split evenly, a 327 is 164/163, which ETS puts at the 93th percentile for Verbal and the 60th for Quant. That gap is not an error; the Quant distribution is simply far more crowded at the high end.

Why the two sections are not comparable

Why 164 Verbal and 163 Quant are not the same achievement
0255075100130140150160170Verbal percentileQuant percentile
The two sections use the same 130–170 scale but completely different distributions. A 164 on Verbal is the 93th percentile; a 163 on Quant is the 60th. That gap is the single most misread thing about GRE scores.

Should you retake?

There is little here worth chasing. The score clears every field average, and the realistic upside is a few points nobody reading your file would weigh differently.

The one exception is a lopsided split. If the section your field actually reads sits well below its average, targeted work on that half can be worth it — the whole test does not need repeating.

Check your split, not your total

Verify the shape before you stop thinking about the test. The GRE percentile calculator turns your two scaled scores into the two percentiles a committee will see.

Check your section percentiles

What to do next

The score is done unless one section is unusually weak for your field. Check that first, then move on.

Frequently asked questions

Would retaking improve a 327 enough to matter?

Rarely worth it. The total already clears every field average, and a few more points would not change how a committee reads the file.

Is a 327 good for engineering or computer science?

Above the 313 engineering average, yes. The number that matters more there is your Quant score on its own, against 163.

Does the Verbal-Quant split matter more than the total?

For most programmes the split matters more. Departments read the section relevant to their field, and at a 327 the published section figures span the 42th to the 99th percentile depending on distribution.

What percentile is a 327 GRE score?

ETS publishes no combined percentile. What it does publish, for an even 164/163 split, is the 93th percentile on Verbal and the 60th on Quant.

Nearby scores