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kartikeytyagi - Hello. Let me start off by saying that, as you have pointed out yourself, a 730 is a fine score. Yes, you know you can do better, but you should also put matters into perspective. I would ask some of the following questions:

1) What schools do you intend to apply to, and what do their class profiles (of actual matriculates) look like? A 730 puts you right in the mix at any top-tier business school, so that by itself is not working against you.

2) What can you present to each business school that makes you stand out? Maybe writing an essay about some of those challenging courses and addressing your GPA sacrifice would be interesting. (Careful, though, as you would not want to make it sound like an excuse.)

3) How does attending Penn affect your application? It is unfortunate in my eyes, but the fact remains that Penn is not the same as Penn State in the eyes of many people, students, professors, and admissions staff alike. But I am sure you already knew that when you applied to college. Could you get any advice from professors or students you know there?

4) When do you plan on attending business school? Most programs consider work experience, and if you are going for a purely academic bent, then you will want to stand out there somehow.

5) Who is to say that your testing experience might not repeat itself? To earn a 44V, you probably missed just a handful of questions, and based on your practice results, it looks as though that represents the middle to upper range of your current ability on the test. (Again, emphasis on current.) What would you do if your Quant went up a little but your Verbal went down to, say, that 42 that you were getting more toward the beginning of your prep? Then you might have two 730s on your hands, even if they were of a slightly different nature.

I draw attention to these considerations because you have not let the dust settle on this experience yet. Too often what I have seen and read on this very forum is that dissatisfied students rush back into the test and, for one reason or another, perform either similarly or even worse than they had before, and then they start to sweat bullets. This is a big decision, so you might want to sleep on it for a bit, get plenty of different advice--and I think you are doing a fine job of seeking it in this forum--and then weigh the pros and cons of taking the test again.

In terms of books, you really have all you need, in my opinion, to practice and improve. Of course, you can sign up for some prep course or other and probably get faster at Quant problems, but something tells me that if you just spent more time studying them and scouring this forum to seek multiple solutions to the same problem--that if you would take the time to appreciate those unique solutions that would differ from your own intuitive approach--you would experience a similar growth in comprehension and problem efficiency, and you could keep more money in your pocket.

Full confession: I am a full-time tutor, but I have never picked up any business from this site, and I make no mention of my business (e.g., dropping URLs) here. This is for fun, and I just want to see if I can help others in my spare time, when I do not have to think about earning more money.

Good luck with your pursuits, whether you decide to tackle the GMAT™ again or let sleeping dogs lie.

- Andrew