I just Beat The GMAT!

QUESTION: SHOULD I RETAKE THE TEST?

I have never been the one that would fuss over 10 points, but I believe I got the one score that would require me to do so as the score seems to exclude me from the coveted 700+ pools. I plan to apply to B-schools this year, so I took the GMAT for the first time last Thursday (9/16/2010) and received the following score.

690 (88th percentile) - Quant 65 percentile: Verbal 92 percentile

It was the one score I dreaded to see on my computer screen when the test was over because now I have to make the decision of whether to take the test over again. My personal GMAT goal was to get 700+ and I am now 10 points shy of the highly coveted 700+. Also, I needed to get the 700+ score to make up for my lower-than-average undergraduate GPA 3.1.

A little about me: 25 yrs old, Asian American female, foreign born, immigrated to the US when I was 10 yrs old, graduated with a Pre-Med (hence the low GPA) and an Econ double degrees from the #1 US public college, had an epiphany the last year in college that it would be too depressing for me to see sick people every day as a career, decided to go into banking after college and had worked for a bulge bracket bank for the past 3 years.

My study plan: I have been studying on and off for 3 months (3-4 hours a week). I finally signed up to take the test 2 weeks ago and that's when I buckled down and did 2 weeks of cramming. The score was a shocker because 1.) my quant score was on the lower end of my practice exams' scores (I am embarrassed to even write that I work in the financial industry and deal with quant all day!) and 2.) my verbal score was on the higher end of what I was expecting because I am not a native English speaker.

I have heard that B-schools (ie. Columbia) weight the quant score more heavily (to make sure the applicants have the quant skills needed to succeed in B-schools). But I have also heard that B-schools (ie. HBS) weight the verbal score more heavily if the applicants already work in a quantitative industry (ie. Finance). Are any of these rumors true?

If I retake the test, I run the risk of getting a lower or same score. As the deadlines for this year's application submission are approaching, retaking the GMAT also means that I will have less time to write my essays. But if I apply with the 690 GMAT score, do I stand a chance getting in the top-10 schools?

My two options are:
1.) apply with the 690 GMAT score in Round 1
2.) wait a month (the minimal time between taking the test again), retake the GMAT (possibly get a higher, lower or same score) and apply in Round 2

Can anyone help with this 690 dilemma? Thank you for your time in advance!

Why not apply to one or two schools round one with the current score, and also retake the test in a month or so and then apply to a couple of other schools with a higher score.

If I were you, I would probably retake the GMAT because of the 3.1 GPA.

It's not a guarantee, but just so I feel better about myself since the whole process is "holistic" anyways.

If that doesn't work out, maybe squeeze in a quant class from community college and Ace them?

Just a reminder, people always say it's a personal decision to retake the GMAT.

From fellow 690ers.

Oddly enough, I also scored a 690 with the exact same percentiles in quant and verbal. If you want to retake for the possible 10 point jump, it's not a terrible idea. However, adcom's see enough apps to know that the difference between a 690 and 700 is just 10 points and that a 690 is still a very good score.

i think that you need to give the admissions comm a reason to not worry about your quantitative reasoning skills. Did you ace mathematics classes in college? If you did well in all calculus classes and in linear algebra, I won't suggest retaking. But if you didn't, the admissions comm may raise a flag regarding your quant score. There's a lot of talk about an 80-80 percentile split in both sections helping your application.

My two cents.

klughing wrote:If I were you, I would probably retake the GMAT because of the 3.1 GPA.

It's not a guarantee, but just so I feel better about myself since the whole process is "holistic" anyways.

If that doesn't work out, maybe squeeze in a quant class from community college and Ace them?

Just a reminder, people always say it's a personal decision to retake the GMAT.

From fellow 690ers.

I think this has been put pretty succinctly by Klughing. Given your background a 720 - 730 score would be a pretty darn good score for top 10. There are a few interesting trends a 3.1 but again it is a #1 public school, one goes in favor the other against (or atleast I think so).
Anyways I think putting in a not so good app would not get you through ...... R1 or R2 and if i were you, with a 690 or 640 or 740 if I do not feel confident about my app I would not submit it.
Secondly does not matter R1 and R2 pretty much have the same number of seats, and given that top 10 would have R2 deadlines of mid Jan or so ........there is ample time to retake the GMAT. See the way i see it is - your Quant would go up, your verbal would go down .......given that you are in the financial sector the quant should go up considerably and I think verbal will drop may be 1 - 2 points even that I do not think will happen, thus overall you will come out ahead.
A good idea would be to join one of those 50 point guarantee programs and Grockit even the free sign up will be awesome, the hard questions......in Grockit are the best after GMAT Prep and OG.
As for 2nd time preps I have a debrief which should give some pointers as would other debriefs on BTG:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/760-done-dea ... tml#299957

Cheers

You are saying that you studied for 3-4 hours a day. Why don't you study 3 hours a day for 2 weeks on quant only and retake the test?