Intern
Joined: 28 Jul 2012
Posts: 30
Given Kudos: 1
Location: United States
Concentration: Finance, Accounting
GPA: 3.43
WE:Other (Consulting)
Should I really take the GMAT again?
[#permalink]
23 Sep 2012, 12:50
Ok, so I want to ask this question to people before I cancel my test date, but I am having tons of second doubts about actually showing up for this test.
For one, I took it once and got a pretty decent score, at least for my top choice of school (UNC-Chapel Hill). It was 45 Quant, 35 Verb, and 660 total. While the quant is a little low and I would like it to be higher, the rest is within the range of the school. After taking the test, I decided to study harder, get tons of books on the subjects and try it again in 2 months. Unfortunately I am out here in Montana, and the closest test center is an hour and a half one way drive away...and the only time they had available when I signed up at the beginning of August is at 8:00am. This means I either have to get up really early on Saturday and drive up there, or drive up on Friday, rent a hotel, and go take the test. The other biggie is there really isnt a breakfast spot nearby that is open that early, which means I need to make stuff before hand and bring it (a huge deterrent for me as I am really big on breakfast.)
The other deterrent, my scores havent improved. At all. My quant is a little higher than what I was doing when I self taught the GMAT and my verbal score fell dramatically. Instead of being in the 75th percentile for the verbal, I am in the 50th now. As for Quant, instead of the 68th percentile, I am now in the 80th (on average). While for the quant that is great, because of the sharp decline in verbal my overall score has fallen to on average 600 instead of going up.
The last one is my damn disorder. Because I am ADD, I have to take medication to sit and study. One of the side effects is it interrupts your sleep, so I cant really take it past 3:00pm. This means I have to get up at 5:30am every day (and have been for the past 2 months) to study before work, then work for 8 hours. Im mentally exhausted. I cant stand the subject anymore, and I am tired of getting up so damn early to study for a test when Im really not improving by that much overall anyways.
My gmat is definately the low point of my admissions (compared to my gpa, my EC, Work experience and adversity that I have) and I also feel like Im just capped out. Today I was taking my last practice test before I take the official one next week and I couldnt even focus on it with my medication. Its at the point where I am telling myself "well, it will look better to at least try again even if you dont really have a chance to improve your score" but now I dont even feel that way. Its starting to interfere with my work (fell asleep last friday on the job) and my second job as a financial manager for an organization (I told them I dont really have time to work anymore because I need to study even though there are many important things that need to get done, like months end book reconciliation).
Any advice? If you were in my shoes would you take it again?