I can't comment on whether schools look to your AWA scores as a native English speaker or whether they just ignore them but I can say with certainty that "skipping" them altogether will have a negative impact on your application. What does that say about an applicant who decides its not worth their time or effort to even attempt to finish the exam in its entireity? Besides, you've scored strongly in AWA in both of your previous attempts, so I don't understand why you would even consider skipping these sections

Maybe cindy_wer wants to skip the AWA to save some energy for both quants and verbal. Normally, test-takers get tired when they come to verbal after finishing AWA and quants.

But in my opinion, you shouldn't skip AWA. This will definitely not impress the adcoms.

cindy_wer wrote:Hi all,

I read in some blogs that some b-schools do not pay attention to awa scores,if the candidate is a native english speaker.
Is it true? And I have attempted gmat 2 times so far,but unfortuntely scored 580 and 590.
But awa score was 5.0 and 5.5.

I am retaking GMAT somewhere in March again.
My question for experts here : Can I skip my awa part and go directly to Quant?

Will the Adcom consider my previous awa scores?
Is skipping AWA a good idea?

Definitely do NOT skip the AWA. Just write freely without spending too much energy or time thinking about what you're going to write. Also, skip proofreading your essay after you're done.

DO NOT SKIP THE AWA! point blank...

My first attempt - took full 30 minutes for each essay...checked work...checked for spelling = AWA = 6
Second attempt - took 20 minutes for each essay...did not spell check = AWA = 5.5
Third attempt - took 15 minutes for each essay...did not spell check...did not re-read any sentence I had written = AWA 5.5

So while I say not to skip the AWA... you can definitely cut down the amount of time and energy put into each one. The less time I spend on the AWA the more my Q score went up! lol... Think about it.. I started the Q portion a full 30 minutes early the last time I took it. I say.. go with this approach.