Please take a look - should I redo GMAT (690)?

[janssen88]

I'm curious to know what others would do in my situation. I got a 690, which is good, but not the 710 I wanted. My questions is:

Do you think a 690 will be good enough for one of the top schools or is it worth retaking? Best case scenario would be 710-720, but also pretty likely to get 690-700. See my basic app details below:

Thank you in advance for the feedback!
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Term: Fall 2009

Target Schools: Hoping for Northwestern/Chicago (g/f is a Chicago alum who will likely get in) due to the city. Also considering UC-Berkely, UCLA, Duke


Age/GMAT: 27 y/o (by Fall 2009), Male

Nationality: US White Caucasion

GMAT: 690 (Q:44, V:40)

Undergraduate: Industrial Engineering & Manufacturing Systems, Ohio University. Overall GPA was 3.2/4.0, Major GPA was 3.9/4.0 (pretty much straight A's the last 6 quarters - will this get noticed?)

Experience:

2004 - 2 Years as an internal consultant at a major airline doing financial planning and labor management consulting. Saved about $3M in expenses through various projects. Also served as project manager for a major software package.

2006 - 1 Year as a Sr Analyst at a Las Vegas major hotel casino in internal consulting. Worked on potential private equity buy-out project for CFO. Saved about $15M in expenses through various projects.

2007 - 1 Year as Manager of operating department + ad-hoc consulting. Demonstrated development and leadership skills as direct reports were promoted to other teams, and my team won region's highest award for Team Results. Saved about $5M in expenses through various projects.

2008 - 1 additional promotion hopefully coming soon... likely more internal consulting but on a bigger scale

Recommendations:

Vice President and Director of my department (Director is current Supervisor) which I know will both write very strong letters

Extra-curricular:

Participate in a handful of charitable organizations. Also served as volunteer youth wrestling coach.

[Lisa Anderson]

Dear janssen88,

I'm not sure an increase less than 20 points is worth your effort as it is unclear if that will really make a difference. I think if you feel you can increase the score, it definitely won't hurt you. Worst case scenario is you use the 690, which is a great score. You seem to have lots of interesting things in your professional experience you can leverage to make your application strong, so be sure to present yourself effectively. Your transcript will be scrutinized and the strong performance at the end is noted and what the admissions committee likes to see. You should feel positive about your candidacy and channel that energy into creating an outstanding application.

Best of luck,
Lisa