low Gmat Score

Looking at your post I can only tell you one thing - That was a waste of an attempt. You went into the test grossly under-prepared and I am not sure if you were aware of it!

Starting up:

1. Your verbal scores are grossly below standard. So I would suggest you spend time on that part first and see if you can push your score close to 40 or maybe beyond that. Easier said than done though. You already have in bold above the books you need to refer for verbal. Try to grasp the concepts. Forget about target 700+ or whatever for the time being. Just focus on the learning part for the next few weeks. Focus on picking up the concepts. Then take a diagnostic after a month and see where you land up in terms of the VA score. If you do not see any improvement then probably you need to change the way you are going about the preparation.

2. Reading success stories et al is fine but it won't work if you fall asleep after reading them Like I said focus should be on learning. Don't treat this as your board exam and concentrate on "passing" If the focus is there I don't see any reason why it would be difficult to start again.

Quant:

While I would be the last person whom you would want to consult on anything involving numbers I would still go ahead with my free advice You are almost there in terms of Quant. Pick out the areas where you feel that you are not strong and have difficulty understanding questions of those type and work on them. That should do I suppose. You can pick up the Manhattan Quant sets. They are really good.

Finally don't go into collecting too much of materials, because in the end you might not even need more than half of them. Start with verbal first and try to reach a level where you are hitting a consistent score (close to 40 or above). If you can keep your Quant scores at more or less the same levels you will definitely be ready to have a good crack at GMAT next time around.

For your point number 4 above - My suggestion - Don't apply.

All the best!

Your GPA is good, but as you're applying for an advanced degree, PhD and particularly finance - you should aim to have a GMAT score in the 600 range. If you didn't really prepare for the exam the first time around, it would probably help you out a lot if you retook the exam. Your application is strong but if they do a screen at 600, you might be missing a lot of your target schools.

We had one PhD student who retook his exam even with a 690 the first time around. He was waitlisted and then retook the exam after our course and scored a 760. Try to retake the exam again but do it in just a month without requiring more of your time. You want to move on to other things after the GMAT exam.

https://www.gmatpill.com/the-gmat-pill-m ... l-student/

These are a few schools which will take applicants with 560 GMATs:
University of Cape Town GSB
Ipade
University of Strathclyde Business School
Incae Business School
University College Dublin: Smurfit
Bradford School of Management
TiasNimbas Business School
Politecnico di Milano School of Management
IAE Business School
Durham Business School
University of Florida: Hough