Second attempt 720. Retake and strategy?

Question

Deleted for personal reasons.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi ElCorazon,

With a 720/Q44, you have a fantastic score (it's above the 90th percentile overall), so you can comfortably apply to any Business Schools that you want to. Before you invest any more time and effort into the GMAT, you should review your profile with an Admissions Expert. There's a Forum full of them here:

ask-admission-consultants-124/

Unless you're planning to apply to a high-end Finance Program (or other Specialty Program), you really shouldn't worry about the percentile associated with your Quant Scaled Score. Business Schools are looking for strong OVERALL applicants (not just those with Quant scores above a certain level). If you do decide to continue studying, then I'll be happy to offer some suggestions as to how you can push the Quant score higher.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

ElCorazon · Answer

Hi Rich,

Thank you for the kind words. I want to study a straight MBA so won't have a finance emphasis in particular, but I'm still below the median at my target schools! I'll take a few days to consider strengths / weaknesses and post if I have any questions on responding to those over the next month or so.
 
Thanks..

ReasonTestPrepBP · Answer

Rich is right that you already have a really good overall score so you should fare well at the top schools, assuming that everything else in the application looks good.

I am not an admissions person so I don't have the specific insight that an admissions person might, but in knowing several admissions people what I would say is this:

While your overall score is amazing, admissions people do seem to say that the committees take a close look at that Quant score to make sure it is up to snuff. 44 is still a very good Quant score but if you think you have the potential to score higher it might be worth retaking. Even if the overall score goes down, my understanding is that while admissions committees are not going to "superscore" your GMAT score, they will see that higher Quant score and probably give you credit for it while still taking the higher overall score.

There doesn't seem to be much of downside to taking the GMAT multiple, multiple times. I have seen people get into top top programs after taking the GMAT 5 or 6 times and I even once tutored a guy who was told by someone on the admissions committee at Columbia to just take the test one more time (he had already taken it 3 times) to try to get a better score and to show the admissions committee that he wanted it bad enough that he was willing to do it. He had a connection to this particular admissions person so I am not saying that his situation is typical but in the end he did get in.

So I think that if you believe there is a good chance that you will score better (as judged in part by official practice tests) then I would probably try again.

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