750 First Time GMAT - Advice on retake?

Hi all,

As a long time lurker, I wanted to thank the community for all the help I've received here, whether from reviewing excellent explanations to problems, or from informative debriefs after test day.

My debrief is a bit bittersweet -- I have a pretty reasonable score (750, 50Q 42V), but I have to say it came far out of left field in terms of all the possible scenarios I envisioned and I'm now undecided on whether to retake, given that I come from an overrepresented demographic.

Before I get to the fun part, here are a couple of questions, which you may find easier to answer after reading my debrief and taking a look at my mock scores:

1) Should I even retake? Target schools are in the top 5/10, the usual suspects. I went to a top tier LAC for undergrad, but as mentioned before, am from a demographic that is notorious for high GMAT scores.
2) My plan is to get my ESR to see what happened on Verbal this time.
3) I really did not enjoy quant during the test. Even though TTP has been great in getting me this far, I'm wondering about materials for a retake. My current plan is to do the GMAT Club tests.
4) I've done each of the GMAT prep mocks once. What mocks should I use for the next rodeo? Manhattan?

Here's a more detailed debrief.

Starting prep (August)

I started my prep by taking GMAT Prep 1 cold. No review (I didn't even know how to solve DS problems) and it showed. I ended up with a 700 (40Q, 45V). Note the 45V here, especially in context of my 42V on the actual thing; this is a contrast that will become ever more jarring through the rest of my debrief. In any case, it informed my (perhaps, in retrospect, foolhardy) decision to go all in on Quant.

Manhattan Quant Review (September - Mid October)

Went through all the Manhattan Quant guides. As people on here with far more experience with the alternatives have commented, these are extremely valuable to get you acquainted with the scale of the task ahead of you (unless you're one of those quant whizzes that was born knowing things like, for example, that a perfect square has an odd number of total factors). My one fault with these materials is that they assume minimal prior knowledge and the problems do not mimic the GMAT in any way. There's not enough practice after each chapter to actually ingrain the concepts, unless you gather problems from OG/elsewhere, which requires time/effort. If you bought all the books like I did, you might have also found the "filler" chapters on DS/plugging in numbers a bit annoying. In any case, I'd say look at these if you're on a budget.

In Limbo (Mid to Late October)

Even though I had reviewed all the Manhattan books, I thought my quant was not up to par, just based on how I was feeling. I decided to go ahead and try TTP, because I enjoy structured learning/reading from textbooks, and just wanted to get enough reps in to feel comfortable with the basic concepts. I started my TTP review in late October.

TTP Review (November)

Nothing much to say here - just went through the TTP program. I thought it really conveyed large majority of facts very concisely and then drilled them into your head with repetition, which is just what I needed at the time. I did not use any other resource for Quant, other than looking at problems on GMAT club every so often.

Verbal Review and Practice Exams (December - Early Jan)
I finally got cracking with Verbal in early december. I went through Manhattan's SC guide, which I found was as advertised. I also looked through some resources online for CR. I didn't touch RC, since English is my native language and I also happen to read a lot of non-fiction. I felt confident I would be able to handle RCs on the tests.

Alright, now to the fun (albeit not so much at the time) part - GMAT Preps. I took 5 of them and scored pretty well. All of them (save the last one, where I skipped IR and AWA) were taken in exam conditions in the order Q-V-IR-AWA. I tried my best not to practice questions from the preps beforehand, and don't recall many repeat questions. If there were any, they would've been in Quant since I barely practiced verbal.

GMAT Prep 2 (Dec 7) - 790 (Q50 V51 IR8; I was shocked at the V51, given the fact that I'd only studied for 2-3 days)

GMAT Prep 3 (Dec 22) - 780 (Q50 V47 IR8; Ok, V47, still pretty good, right? And I was still clinging onto the Q50 for dear life)

GMAT Prep 4 (Dec 29) - 790 (Q51 V51 IR8; V51 again?? I'm feeling like I'm on to something here. Separately, the math on this particular test was ridiculously easy. I CTRL F'ed all the questions I got and like two of them were above 55% difficulty on GMAT club)

GMAT Prep 5 (Jan 1) - 770 (Q49 V47 IR7; Uh oh, now I'm worried about my Q score.)

GMAT Prep 6 (Jan 7) - 780 (Q50 V49 No IR on this one; Ok, so it's going to be touch and go between Q49 and 50 on this test, and there's always the risk of slipping below that. I was hopeful at this point that my verbal would not be lower than 44.)

I also noticed that I got every CR and RC question correct on the preps. The couple of mistakes were on SC questions.

Test day (Jan 9)

I'll spare you my mundane morning routine, but I got to the center on time and checked in. I wasn't super nervous (it's tough to rationalize nerves when you know you have 7 more attempts to get something right, and also because I'm not applying to school until the fall). Anyway, I go ahead with the section order that had become routine at this point (Q-V-IR-AWA).

Quant - I thought this was way harder than the GMAT Preps. I always thought something was off on the preps, because some of the questions were so easy, even when I was scoring 50. By the end of the section, I was convinced I wouldn't hit 48, but wasn't down enough for it to impact my verbal.

Verbal - I thought this was in line with the GMAT Preps as I worked through it. But then I ran out of time and couldn't select an answer for the very last question (big mistake?). Anyway, I just wanted to do IR and AWA and get out of there.

IR - This was pretty much in line with the Preps.

I finished up my AWA, hit enter, and see 750 (Q50 V42). I was shocked at both scores for different reasons. I expected Quant to be way lower; guess I got a few of the experimental Qs wrong at that allowed me to scrape the 50. But what about that V score -- it was far lower than any of my prep scores! Heck, it was way lower than my diagnostic score! Honestly, couldn't have seen that coming, although the overall score was in line with preps if you tell me that one can expect to score within 30 points of his/her lowest prep. I canceled the score, knowing I could reinstate, and will purchase an ESR when it is ready.