Which of these two GRE scores should I send for a graduate program in astronomy? (school, career)

[Omega Force]

Hi,

I have passed two GRE tests, and I don't know which one of the two scores I should send for a graduate program in astronomy.

The first time I got: Verbal Reasoning 153 (59%) - Quantitative Reasoning 161 (80%) - Analytical Writing 3.5 (38%)

The second time I got: Verbal Reasoning 155 (67%) - Quantitative Reasoning 162 (83%) - Analytical Writing 3.0 (15%)

Maybe one of the three parts is less important than the other two?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

[Yvanung]

In an astronomy context, AW is more or less discarded; they understand the writing asked of you in grad school is rather different from what is asked on the general GRE.

[Omega Force]

That's what I was thinking. But still, the drop in Analytical Writing is huge (from 38% to 15%), while the increase in Quantitative Reasoning is extremely small (from 80% to 83%). So even if Quantitative Reasoning is more important than Analytical Writing, I'm not so sure that the extremely small increase in QR is worth the huge drop in AW...

[Larry Siegel]

Why do you want to be an astronomer? To pursue an academic career? Work in a research lab or observatory? Work for NASA?

I was talked out of a career in the sciences with much better scores than that. I could have gotten into grad school but I was interested in an academic career, and I'd be spending my adult years as a non-tenured professor at a non-flagship state university. I just didn't have the talent. No offense intended but trying to save you some trouble later on.

[L210]

What does the graduate program list as a minimum acceptable AW score? Even in the social sciences, most graduate programs don't list a minimum requirement for the AW score because they don't even look at it.