To retake or not retake? (680, 44Q 38V)

[BrooklynGMAT]

Took the big test yesterday and got a 680 (44Q, 38V). I'm pretty disappointed, as I was averaging around 720-730 on the last 4 CATs I took, GMAT prep included. For most of my practices I was averaging around 44-46 on verbal and 41-43 on quant. Somehow I dropped quite a bit on verbal and was slightly better than usual on quant. I'm dumbfounded.

Trying to decide now whether or not to retake- I'm coming from a nonprofit background and have no quantitative course work in college and no finance background post-college. I'm looking to apply to top-10 schools and I'm concerned that I'm at the very bottom edge of the mean for their GMAT scores. Then again, I have a solid GPA from a top-10 liberal arts college showing a great track record in reading and writing. Should I let it go? Retake it? Any thoughts are appreciated.

[DanaJ]

Hey that's not a bad score, you know? Especially if you've crossed the 80% mark for both sections (I don't know the percentiles for the q/v breakdown, but I suspect quant is under that threshold). The range for Harvard was something like 490 - 800 this year...

I believe you should ask this question in your consultant section. However, if you seriously believe that you could improve your score next time around, you could try again...

[beatthegmat]

Normally I don't say this to people who have scored a 680, but I think that you should retake. The reason why I think so was your comment about how you have very little quant background--I think that b-schools will be looking for evidence of quant proficiency, and a high GMAT math score will help to validate that.

Just my two cents, good luck!