High verbal but Low Quant Score

Hi ankita21cen - Congrats on getting a strong overall score with that second attempt!

We know how stressful this stuff is and we understand your doubts, but we would advise that in most cases, someone with this score history, at this stage of the admissions cycle, should put the GMAT behind them and proceed to the next part of their applications. We can't say for sure that that's what YOU should do, because we don't know anything about you except for GMAT scores, but we're betting that it is the advice we'd end up giving you after gathering a lot more information.

Your two 47 quant scores are nothing to be ashamed of - the 71 percentile is not the best-of-the-best but it's respectable. You're right to wonder about the imbalanced score but the improvement in verbal is pretty impressive, and that does count for something too. Because you ended up at 47 twice, then we would be skeptical that you'd be able to bring the quant up in a radical fashion from here. If you test again and get a 48, it doesn't do anything more for you - it would only underscore your abilities. You'd need to get a 49, probably - and that 2-point jump might be hard to pull off. We don't know, obviously, that's something only you can say.

The only reason we don't care for your 720 score is that unfortunate dip in the AWA - a 4.5 is actually sad to see, as it's below what we would expect from you, and it's so much off from what you did before. We have only once told someone to retake the GMAT only due to AWA so we don't think you should retest just for this point. A 4.5 won't keep you out of bschool. But it's a glitch in the profile - you may want to share with the adcom the fact that you were sick during the test (you could tell them this in the optional essay).

We're guessing that you're coming from the ever-popular pool of Indian candidates which is why you're worried. The average GMAT for accepted Indian students is around 720, so you're actually in good shape with this recent test. There's a lot of moving parts to a bschool app so we can't definitively say "yes" or "no", you should or shouldn't retest - but our instincts are saying that you could be fine. It really needs to be examined within the scope of your entire profile - if you want to share more details with us, we'd be happy to try and help you further. Ack - sloppy reading. You did tell us you got good grades etc. On the whole we would bet that you'll be fine. The essays, recs, resume matter a LOT. Turn your attention to that now. All that takes a lot of work too. Others are likely to have different opinions but we say you should go ahead with this 720 score.

EssaySnark