GMAT Strategy

First, a question: why are you retaking it? A 720 is an excellent score - one that many of your fellow students would metaphorically kill for! It's a score that would indicate to any top school that you are more than capable of handling the coursework and adding to the intellectual atmosphere at the school. It's also at/above the median/average of almost every top school.

I tell my students that they should always aim to at or above their target school's median or average. Below that, and you risk dragging the school's average down, so you would need to be a standout candidate otherwise. Once you're above that threshold, though, distinctions matter a lot less. Schools effectively "check the box" of a high GMAT score, and then they look at what else you have to offer.

In other words, the difference between a 690 and a 720 (with an otherwise identical application) at a top 10 school might well be the difference between acceptance and rejection. The difference between a 720 and a 750 is much less likely to be a make-or-break difference.

Unless you believe that the rest of your application has MAJOR deficiencies (low GPA, not-that-interesting career path, no quant courses in undergrad, etc), you probably don't need to retake the GMAT. Your time might be better spent polishing your application to make yourself a standout candidate. Or better yet, take an online finance course, or do extra nonprofit work to make yourself an attractive candidate.

If the rest of your application isn't appealing, then even going from a 720 to a 770 won't get you into top schools!

One way to go is to follow my colleague's sound advice. What she says is true: retaking may not be in your best interest in time or results. Have you spoken with an admissions consultant about your score and school choice? They might provide the best and most efficient insight with the schools you're aplying to if it's worth the time and effort. There are plenty of amazing people to speak to on this forum about this.

That said, you've already seen that you can perform higher on the diagnostic tests, and the most effective efficient path would be to identify what you're not answering correctly, and see if there are any patterns in those answer choices. In our experience working with a tutor even for a couple of hours is like finishing school and can make a huge difference. Another thing to consider esp. since the reading was an issue is to employ speed reading techniques. These are easy and quick to learn but you need to implement them. We've found students increase up to 5x with our methods and average a 13% increase in their reading-based performance. That doesn't even account for the additional improvements on the test itself by reading faster.
Win-win.

Do you think anything else is holding you back from performing how you do on the diags? Anxiety? Anything?

Bara wrote:One way to go is to follow my colleague's sound advice. What he says is true...

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