730 —96% (44Q 47V) Retake for higher Quant?

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Hey all! I just took the GMAT for the first time yesterday and scored, cumulatively, much higher than I thought I would have. If you were to see the 730 alone, you might say I "beat the GMAT"-however, I'm conflicted and considering retaking, as a 44 in Quant translates to the 57th percentile, and I lack a demonstrable quant track record (aside from AP Calc in HS, lol). I also got a 6 in IR, which is much lower than my average.

Should I retake for a more balanced split? I've always been weaker in Quant, but I think I could score up to a max of 70th percentile and in IR I usually score at least a 7. Verbal I'm always between 95-99.

Other considerations-aiming for top 5 schools, 4 years work experience (mainly in tech/startups), BA and MA from Stanford, near 4.0 UG/Grad GPAs, female and URM (not sure if that helps much).

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Hi nicat,

A 730 is an outstanding score (it's well above the 90th percentile overall), so you should apply to any Business Schools that interest you. You're ultimately asking general Admissions questions, so you might want to post them to the Admissions Experts in their Forum:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/ask-an-mba- ... t-f40.html

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by Jim@StratusPrep » Mon Nov 16, 2015 10:25 am
My honest opinion is that you should think about taking the exam again. You definitely have an OUTSTANDING score, but it will serve you to get the quant a bit closer to the 80th percentile for the top programs.

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by ceilidh.erickson » Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:20 pm
This is an old post, but I think it's still important to debunk the following misinformation:
Jim@StratusPrep wrote:My honest opinion is that you should think about taking the exam again. You definitely have an OUTSTANDING score, but it will serve you to get the quant a bit closer to the 80th percentile for the top programs.
It is absolutely NOT TRUE that you should aim for 80th percentile in quant anymore! That may have been true decades ago, but changes to student scores internationally in recent years now mean that you'd need an almost-perfect score to get an 80+ percentile on quant these days.

IGNORE YOUR PERCENTILES! That is NOT what schools look at when they are evaluating your scores! They look at your overall score and your subscore for the quant and verbal sections.

If you're looking at the percentiles rather than the subscores, you're getting the wrong impression. It is the subscore - not the percentile - that indicates your ability level. These scores range from 0-51, and they don't change over time. As Larry Rudner, former Chief Psychomatrician for GMAC, says, "The GMAT scale [sub] scores represent the same ability level over time. Thus, a Quant score of 43 in 2002 represents the exact same level of ability as a Quant score of 43 does in 2011."

The percentiles, on the other hand, have changed significantly over time. When the test was originally developed, an overwhelming majority of test takers were US citizens. In 2015, though, only 34% of the roughly 250,000 test takers who took the GMAT were US citizens*.

The net impact of these shifting demographics, as Rudner says, is that "the means and standard deviations of the Quant and Total scores have gone up, but those of the Verbal scores have gone down." If your Quant percentile looks low but your verbal looks high, this is more of a reflection on the global pool of test takers than it is on you.

Business schools don't look at percentiles.

Don't listen to any sources that tell you to aim for a particular percentile. Ten years ago, a Quant raw score of 47 out of 51 was 81st percentile. Today, that same score is only a 63rd percentile. But business schools know that this represents the same skill level now as it did then, so they don't care what the percentile is. Jeremy Shinewald, founder of our admissions consulting partner, mbaMission, recently told me, "Admissions officers know the GMAT well and they are not confused by the percentiles. Fundamentally, they want to know that you can manage the coursework, and your raw score is a clearer indicator of your abilities than the percentile, because it is consistent over time."

More information here: https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... mat-score/
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by ceilidh.erickson » Thu Nov 30, 2017 3:29 pm
It is true that top schools might consider a 44Q somewhat low, but they care much more about your overall score than about Q & V individual scores.

Here's what I told a student recently who got a 730 with 44-Q, 46-V, 5-IR:
No, you should probably not retake it to boost your IR / quant unless:
- you were consistently scoring 740+ on CATs and think you have a decent shot at raising your overall score,
- you definitely want to go into consulting after b-school. McKinsey, Bain, & others have started using the IR score as part of their hiring process.
- you have a quant "hole" in your resume - no college math courses, no quantitatively rigorous work. If an English major who works in a creative industry applies, schools often want to see a 46+Q. If you took calculus or stats in school or do quantitatively analytical work, then you've effectively checked the quant box, and all they care about is the overall score.

Otherwise, a 730 w/ 44Q and 5 IR definitely not going to be a dealbreaker for you. If you have a score at/above the median (which a 730 would be at any school), they're definitely not going to disqualify you based on an IR of 5. They care way less about IR than the overall (which is what they report for rankings). If you have other ways of showing quant prowess, then again all they care about is the overall, because rankings.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education