Doctrine Query Language get Max/Latest Row Per Group

The query you are trying to do with doctrine is related to greatest-n-per-group. To use a sub query and then join with main query get things complicated to handle with doctrine. So below is the rewritten SQL version to get the same results without use of any aggregate functions:

SELECT 
  a.* 
FROM
  score a 
  LEFT JOIN score b 
    ON a.name = b.name 
    AND a.score < b.score 
WHERE b.score IS NULL 
ORDER BY a.score DESC 

DEMO

To convert above query equivalent to doctrine or DQL is easy, below is the DQL version of above SQL:

SELECT a 
FROM AppBundle\Entity\Score a
    LEFT JOIN AppBundle\Entity\Score b 
    WITH a.name = b.name 
    AND a.score < b.score
WHERE b.score IS NULL
ORDER BY a.score DESC

Or with query builder you can write something like i have tested below with symfony 2.8 using the DEMO Schema

$DM   = $this->get( 'Doctrine' )->getManager();
$repo = $DM->getRepository( 'AppBundle\Entity\Score' );
$results = $repo->createQueryBuilder( 'a' )
                ->select( 'a' )
                ->leftJoin(
                    'AppBundle\Entity\Score',
                    'b',
                    'WITH',
                    'a.name = b.name AND a.score < b.score'
                )
                ->where( 'b.score IS NULL' )
                ->orderBy( 'a.score','DESC' )
                ->getQuery()
                ->getResult();

Another idea would be create a view using your query in database and in symfony create an entity put the view name in table annotation and just start calling your entity it will give the results returned by your query but this approach is not recommended just a temporary fix.