GRE Score Reporting and Sending Scores

By Muntasir Jul 20, 2026 6 min read

TL;DR

You see your unofficial Verbal and Quant scores on screen the moment your GRE test ends, at a test center or at home. Analytical Writing does not show on test day because a trained rater has to read every essay first. Official scores, including the AW score, land in your ETS account 8 to 10 days after your test date, and named schools get their report at the same time. Registration includes up to 4 free score reports if you name schools on test day itself, before leaving the session. Miss this window and each extra report costs 40 dollars and takes about 5 business days. Scores stay reportable for 5 years.

Your GRE score report reaches you in two stages. First, an unofficial preview of two of your three scores appears on screen before you leave the test. Second, the complete official report, including your essay score, posts to your ETS account roughly a week and a half later.

Knowing this timeline helps you plan application deadlines and decide which schools to name for free on test day. This guide covers what you see immediately, when official reports arrive, how many free score reports come with registration, and what it costs to send more later. Score reporting is separate from the exam fee itself, covered in our guide to GRE fees.

What You See at the End of the Test

You view your unofficial Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning scores on screen immediately at the end of the test. This works the same way at a test center and at an at-home administration. After viewing the two scores, you choose whether to report them or cancel them. Those two numbers are the only score data you take away from the session.

Your Analytical Writing score never appears at this stage. ETS states plainly you will not be able to view your Analytical Writing score at the end of your test, because of the essay scoring process. The same rule holds if you test at home. Plan on ending the session with two of your three scores in hand.

Why the Essay Score Takes Longer

Analytical Writing sits outside the end-of-test screen because of the essay scoring process. A trained rater has to read your essay and score it before ETS releases the number. Your Analytical Writing score therefore reaches you with your official report, 8 to 10 days after your test date. Treat the two numbers on the end-of-test screen as your only same-day feedback.

Official Score Report Timeline

Your complete official scores, covering Verbal, Quant, and Analytical Writing, become available in your ETS account 8 to 10 days after your test date, and ETS emails you when the report is ready. Your Analytical Writing score appears here for the first time. If you named any institutions on test day, they receive their official Institution Score Report on the same schedule.

The table below summarizes what you know and when.

Stage	What you see	Timing
End of test	Unofficial Verbal and Quant scores	Immediately, before you leave the session
Official report	Verbal, Quant, and Analytical Writing scores	8 to 10 days after your test date
Designated schools	Official Institution Score Report	Same day as your official report

Your official report carries three scores on two different scales. Verbal Reasoning and Quantitative Reasoning use a 130 to 170 scale in 1-point increments, while Analytical Writing uses a 0 to 6 scale in half-point increments. For a full breakdown of these scales and how scores map to percentiles, see our guide to GRE percentiles.

Free Score Recipients Included at Registration

Your standard registration fee covers sending official score reports to a set number of schools at no extra charge, but only if you act on test day. You are allowed to designate up to 4 graduate institutions or fellowship sponsors on test day to receive official score reports at no extra cost. This benefit is part of your test fee, not a separate purchase you add on.

This window is tight and easy to miss.

You name your free recipients after viewing your unofficial Verbal and Quant scores, while you are still in the test session.
The free window is a one-time chance: if you do not choose your score recipients on test day, you order score reports later for a fee.
Once you leave the session without naming recipients, every future report you order carries a fee.

Decide which programs to name before test day. Bring a shortlist of 4 programs and their exact names, because you make this call under time pressure at the end of the session. Naming fewer than 4 leaves part of what your registration fee already covers unused. Every program you skip costs money to add later.

Sending Additional Score Reports Later

Plans change after test day. If you did not use all 4 free slots, want to add a school, or are applying to a program you had not settled on when you tested, you order an Additional Score Report (ASR) through your ETS account. Every ASR is a paid request, with no free allowance carried over from registration. You place the order online and ETS sends the report to the institution for you.

ASR Fee and Processing Time

Each Additional Score Report costs 40 dollars per score recipient. You are allowed to order an ASR at any point within your score's reportability window, and requests take approximately 5 business days to process after you order online through your ETS account. Build this processing time into your application planning, especially near hard deadlines. Ordering at least a week before a deadline keeps the 5-day processing window from running past it.

Choosing Which Scores to Send

When you order an ASR, ScoreSelect lets you choose which test sitting or sittings to send: your most recent scores or all your reportable scores. Official Institution Score Reports built this way never include scores you chose not to report, and they include no indication other GRE sittings exist. Schools you send an ASR to see only what you selected. For the full rules on which score combinations you are allowed to send and how long each sitting stays eligible, see our guide to GRE ScoreSelect and score validity.

How Long Scores Stay Reportable

Your GRE scores are reportable for 5 years following your test date. After this window closes, ETS is no longer able to send those scores to institutions officially. The same 5-year window also sets how long you are allowed to order an Additional Score Report. Plan any retakes or extra sends around this cutoff if you are applying years after you tested.

How Schools Receive Your Scores

Institutions do not receive a mailed paper report by default. They pull or receive your scores electronically through one of two channels: ETS Data Manager, a web-based on-demand portal updated multiple times per week, or an automated server-to-server feed pushing data files to the institution's server about twice a week. Both delivery methods are free for the institution to use.

This means your designated schools typically see your official report within the same window you do, without waiting on postal mail. If a program tells you it has not received your scores past the normal timeline, follow up with the program's admissions office directly. The ETS side of delivery runs on a fixed weekly schedule, so start your check at the receiving end.

Sending scores is only half the picture. Practice under real section timing before you test, so your unofficial Verbal and Quant scores reflect your best work. We offer free full-length GRE mock tests and section drills, with no signup required, on our GRE practice page.