Ask Stacy Blackman

Hi - I am in need of some admissions and gmat advice. I will apply to business school in R1 of 2015. I just turned 30 so this is just about the last year I can consider going to business school. I want to go to business school to switch from the technology operator space to VC or Venture Growth Equity/PE. Going to business school will LIKELY be a temporary step back for me in terms of earnings but based on all the networking and research I have done so far, it is the surest way for me to make the career pivot I want. I am targeting Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Wharton.

I took the GMAT a week ago and scored a 710 (44 Q & 44 V). Should I retake the test in hopes of getting closer to 750 to have a chance to get into the schools I am targeting? The GMAT tutor I worked with during my last month of prep is encouraging me to do so. He believes I was nervous and would perform better on a retake and have potential to score 720-760. (not to mention that the test proctor cost me 2 minutes of time in the quant section by telling me I had 2 minutes left of break time when I did not).

If I hadn't just started a new job (and I didn't have 2 very young kids and a wife who wants to see me when I am not solving RTD problems) retaking it would be a no brainer. I would really appreciate any words of wisdom. Thanks in advance.

Here is some background on my GMAT potential:
GMAT PREP 1 - 700
GMAT PREP 2- 720
GMAT PREP 3 - 720
GMAT PREP 4 - 740

Here is some background info on my application profile:

Work History:
- Currently the director of a 20MM+ business line leading a cross functional team of product managers, marketers, UI/UX designers and engineers at a high growth technology start up.
- Prior to that I was the first employee at a data analytics tech company where we raised over 40MM in venture financing from top tier VCs. While there i had a number of roles, I lead a professional services team, a product team and an analytics team of data scientists. Helped grow the business from $0 to over $20MM in revenue
- Started a real estate investment firm that has over 2MM in assets at produces 100k in revenue annually
- started a small seed stage investment partnership with founders of the aforementioned tech start up, invested in 18 companies, 3 exits so far
- prior to tech worked in quantitative finance (prepayment model forecasting, credit default risk, etc)
- I run the membership committee of a professional angel networking group where I evaluate and admit lots of alumni from top schools and is run by two HBS alums

Academic
- CFA Charterholder
- Masters in Applied Economics concentration in Econometrics and Financial Economics from Johns Hopkins GPA 3.9
- Undergrad BS in Business with concentration in Economics from large state school, GPA 3.47

Personal:
- Citizen of central asian/middle eastern country
- speak a language other than english