Alright, after 3 months of stressing over this exam, I don't think I can bring myself to take it again. I think perhaps I am just not a great test taker.
I made my decision to go to bschool in late August, so I scheduled my 1st exam on 9/30. I did alright in all of the practice exams from both
Manhattan GMAT and GMATPrep - all 650-700. Then the actual day I totally froze during the math section and ended up with a 600. I then gave myself another 8 weeks and started to take more exams for practice. I started to see improvements in my answers and scores (700+ on all practices). The day of the test I did one last exam and scored 760 (my official exam was at 5 PM). On the actual test, the quant problems were extremely difficult and many were problems I've never seen before so I didn't even know how to approach them! So anyway, I did poorly again and this time my score was 650 (42 quant, 38 verbal). Round 2 deadlines are coming up and I wonder if I should retake it again or just apply with this score. I feel that I have excellent work experience, unique background and story, great essay writing skills, etc., so perhaps I can compensate the lower score. However, my choices of schools are also the toughest (HBS, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg) so I'm at a very tough spot. Any recommendations?
BTW: I just turned 26, female, asian, working in senior management at a top CPG company