Should I retake? Q46 V44 720

hey buddy, your confidence says you can achieve it so if you have time and patience to continue the tempo of studies, by all means you must go for the retake.

No.

1. You could do just as well, or worse. Your practice scores may be skewed by your own discipline, overlapping questions, or by some other reason.

2. It shows you to be insecure and lacking wisdom. You are in the top 5% and above the mean admission for every single program on Earth. Even a move to an 800 would raise more questions than would be answered. You are already shown to be academically solid. Don't come across as having questionable judgment.

Another way of looking at it: a 720 is already 50% better than a 700. Would you retake at a 700 if you were likely to score a 720? Well, that's the percentile difference.

Congratulations on your score, and beware those on this board. They tend to be a little too obsessed with this little test. I suspect this is due to citizenship in nations where a single test is the only deciding factor for many things. That is not how the GMAT and MBA admissions work.

Take the time you would spend studying and volunteer in a meaningful way. It will do more for your app and your humanity.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Since I'm getting some different messages and have to decide very soon (since the spots before June 5th are filling up quickly), it would be great if some more people could weigh in.

I'm currently leaning towards retaking the exam. For one, I have time this month and could devote at least 2 hours a day to studying. Two, Q46 is the quant score I got about 3 weeks into preparation. Since then, I have scored above that and recently, I scored Q49 and Q50. I feel confident that simply retaking the exam without additionally prep would probably get me a higher score. Having the extra month to study just makes it more likely. My verbal has always been in the 43-46 range, so a 44 was expected and I wouldn't expect to to go down or up much.

So a few questions. If I went from a 720 to a 750, would admissions people really question my judgment in retaking the exam? If my score would indeed go up to around 750, would that be worth a retake? I understand that 720 is a good score and I'm happy I studied and got it, but I'm worried that I'll regret it if I don't retake and get the score I know I can get.

Well, I'm already questioning your sanity pretty heavily. So perhaps an event from my own life will help.

Years ago, I botched my SAT. I had aced my practice quantitative, but managed to skip a question on the actual and bubble the final four questions wrong as a result. I ended-up with a 710 out of 800 on my quantitative. I was outraged and wanted to take it again. However, I couldn't as there wasn't enough time.

I did my undergraduate interview at Wharton (a rarity for undergrad). There, I apologized and said that I knew I could do better, and that I had identified my error. The admissions officer laughed. He told me that I was already higher than most of the last incoming class, and someone would have to be mental to go through that again given the score I had achieved. I was accepted, and I believe my statement was chalked-up to the folly of youth. I was 17.

There is likely no net upside to your admissions taking the GMAT again. Even an 800 does not undo the damage of the questions raised by such a decision. It just flags you as someone with a defective personality and bad judgment. The top 5 could fill their programs several times over with 99% scorers. They don't for a reason.

Grow-up and learn to be satisfied with amazing, but not perfect, results. Remember, this is GMAT Club, not MBA Admissions Club. You win GMAT Club with a high GMAT. You win MBA Admissions Club by being accepted to the best MBA for you. What are you truly trying to achieve?

720 is amazing. If better than 19/20 global takers is good enough for HBS, Booth, Wharton, and Stanford, why shouldn't it be for you?

This is an interesting and widely applicable topic. In my view, the issue here isn't with the overall score; a 720 is excellent and I would assume there is no need to re-take. That said, the breakdown may not be ideal; a 44V would place you in the 95+ percentile, so no issue there, but a Q 46 I believe would be mid-high 70s in terms of percentile. Given the supposed strong preference among top schools for both subsections to be above the 80th percentile, that's where my concern would lie; in fact, as someone with a similar score and breakdown (730 overall; 45 V 45Q), I have struggled with the re-take question for quite a while, only because my quant (74th percentile when I tested) was below the magical 80th percentile number.

This is one of the only examples where I'd advocate a retake.

Some top schools do look for the 80/80 split but more so in quant than in verbal. So based on that fact that

1. You are confident of scoring q49/50 from practice exams
2. You have time to burn and a retake will not impact your ability to write apps

I say go for it!