680 (Q39, V44) on first attempt (art history major), retake planned

Hi peeps, I just took my first GMAT attempt this week and now I'm here to debrief and reflect.

GMATPrep practice test results:
630 (Q35, V41) -- Oct 20 2016
690 (Q43, V41) -- Jan 20 2017
720 (Q48, V41) -- Jan 21 2017
740 (Q49, V42) -- Jan 22 2017

Actual test results:
680 (Q39, V44) -- Jan 25 2017
TBD -- March 7 2017

Thoughts:

I come from a liberal arts background, so I know that my quant is my weakness. I'm not particularly bad at math--I passed AP Calc AB by 11th grade. I just don't have a sense of natural confidence/ deeper understanding in the math.

I studied 70-80 hours over the course of 3 months. I was testing consistently near 750/ Q50 by the end of my study period, so I went into the exam feeling really happy and confident. Actual exam day was a bit of a let-down because I came out with 680/ Q39. My verbal was V44, 98th percentile, but I was sad because I know the quant, 39th percentile, is not very impressive for a math-based finance program.

Maybe the most interesting strategy I developed was my approach to the quantitative section timing. I set a goal for myself to be at question 30 by the time there were 30 minutes remaining in the section. This was the strategy that produced my Q48 and Q49 scores in the practice. To reach question 30 by the time 30 minutes were left, I had to be willing to give up and guess on some of the harder questions. This strategy, with my skill set, meant in practice that I was resetting the computer-adaptive difficulty to easy at 1/3 of the way through the section and then again at about 2/3 of the way through the section. It felt a bit like gaming the system, after the first time, but when I did it again a second time, and reproduced the results, it seemed like maybe an intelligent response to the computer-adaptive nature of the test. I wasn't able to hold to the strategy during my actual exam, and I think this produced a computer-adaptive difficulty that lowered my score a bit. I knew at the end of my actual quant section that I hadn't followed my practice strategy, so I was hurt though not excessively surprised that my math score was subpar.

As far as timing on the verbal section, I feel very naturally confident, and I have consistently been able to score at least 93rd percentile in the practices, with about 40 minutes extra to spare. To improve, I worked on spending more time on each question and checking my work so that I actually drag the verbal section to the full duration of the time allotted. I'm pretty much able to reason my way to the right answer. There's a few cases where my understanding of grammar and implicit meaning is different from the GMAT testmakers' (about 5 questions wrong in the entire section), but I'm actually comfortable with that. I read a lot of modernist/ postmodern literature, like James Joyce, Haruki Murakami, and Thomas Pynchon. Joyce in particular has been a big influence on me, and he deals a lot with syntactical experimentation and deliberately breaking the rules of English. This sounds increibly obnoxious to say, but I'd rather keep my postmodern understanding of English and be slightly wrong on the GMAT, rather than be perfect on the GMAT but interpret English like a robot.

I didn't have any test day jitters, for the most part, but there were a few things about the test center experience that made me slightly uncomfortable. The time it took to scan my palm, take off my glasses, show my ID, pat down my pockets, etc etc, both at the beginning and the end of each break, meant that I really only had more like 4 minutes to chill during my break, rather than 8. I couldn't wear my watch, so I spent most of the break time nervously rushing through my snack so I could hurry back from my locker. The breaks weren't the worst thing in the world, but the stress of the rush was almost not worth it. Not sure what I can do about that for next time, except get used to it.

My next test is planned for early March. I've bought two Manhattan Prep books--Foundations of Math and Advanced Quant--and I hope to spend the month practicing my math skills even more. I also plan to buy Exam Pack 2 and take those two practice exams. I think as my math skills get better, I still want to aim for that same quant math stategy: hit question 30 by the time 30 minutes are left. But maybe it can become less a matter of having to guess on some hard questions and more a matter of solving each problem in close to 90 seconds.

Schools I'm considering are Georgetown MSF (first choice), as well as the finance programs at Vanderbilt, University of Utah, Hopkins, U.Va. and MIT/Princeton (reach, unlikely).

I mostly want to be able to stay in Utah, which is why Georgetown and Hopkins' online programs, and the University of Utah, appeal to me. If I bump up my GMAT, I think I would be competitive at Vandy and U.Va for fall 2018 matriculation. I don't have a strong enough math or computer science transcript at present for MIT or Princeton, so I would need to take some classes at the University of Utah this fall if I really really wanted to try for MIT or Princeton, matriculating fall 2018. My dad went to MIT, so it would be an interesting application with the son of alumnus tie-in in my essay/ profile, but honestly, I think I will get into Georgtown this spring, and that will be enough for me.

I work at a bank. Went to BYU, which West Coast Americans seem to consider a difficult school but which is honestly probably a little laid back compared to East Coast standards. Majored in art history and minored in nonprofit business management, so I do actually have some direct class experience in financial statement analysis. Balance sheet, statement of cash flows, profit and loss shet. My GPA is 3.2--mostly straight A's with some lower grades sprinkled in as I dealt with depression. I was pretty bummed about my Q39 score, and I spent a good 24 hours moping, but I'm grateful for this space as place to reflect and learn from others who are wiser than me. Excited to try again next month. Will update you guys afterward! Good luck to all.


Book and materials used:
GMAT Official Guide, GMAT Official Quantiative Review, and GMAT Official Verbal Review 2017
GMATPrep + Exam Pack 1
Chineseburned's AWA guide on this forum
ManhaattanPrep Advanced Quant book (barely started the book)
GMAT Avengers study group on Facebook