GMATPill wrote:
hermit84,
It's all about tradeoffs. You already have a decent GMAT score in the 700 range and since your score is valid for 5 years, you can technically still use this score for schools. However your IR and AWA scores are quite low.
The good thing is that you have 8 years of work experience -- if you didn't have enough work experience, you should definitely think about retaking your GMAT to boost those scores. But as you get more and more experience, you have that experience to back you up -- and less important to get a perfect GMAT score.
If you have the option to explain your low IR/AWA scores, you should try to. The new IR section came out in June 2012 and you pretty much took it a few months after it launched. It's possible for you to attribute the lower IR score due to the new-ness of the exam and lack of awareness/understanding of this new IR section. So that's a possible point you can make. However, your AWA score is low too so that's difficult to address -- besides pointing to your decent Verbal score in your 710 score.
If you have the time to fit in another 1-1.5 months of preparation -- go for it. Also find out how likely you would get the financial aid if you scored higher. Otherwise, you may want to consider the added time cost and risk of scoring lower as reasons not to retake.
Thanks for your reply.
And sorry for coming back late to this, didnt have email access for last few days.
You are righ about my IR score, I didnt have much idea about the section, or probably didnt want to spend anytime on this section. I was more concerned about my Quant and VA, ulitimately got a decent one, but only at the cost of IR and AWA. Honestly I did much better in AWA than what my score indicates.
Now what is done is done!
To what extent does my score of 37 in Verbal nullify my bad score in AWA? When you talk about explaining my bad score in IR/AWA, when will I get a chance to do it? Aren't there chances that I wont be even considered for PI? If yes, when would I get a chance to explain?
Thanks in advance!