|
First of all, ZonaBit, congratulations on a 720 score! That's an impressive accomplishment, and one that most GMAT examinees would love to achieve, so you certainly should be proud of such a performance.
As for the less-than-perfect attributes of the score:
-Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about the AWA. The percentile looks a lot worse than it really is - percentile is defined as "% below your score", so a 37th percentile means that 37% of examinees scored lower. It doesn't mean, however, that 63% scored higher; the AWA scoring metric is fairly limited in its half-point increments, so I'd estimate that something like 15% of candidates also scored a 4.5, meaning that you're right around average overall, and pretty strong for a non-native English speaker. Because your verbal score is so high, my inkling is that most schools will be pretty confident in your language skills (pending, as you mentioned, a strong TOEFL, as well), so I definitely wouldn't recommend your retaking the GMAT and paying the $250+ fee just to increase the AWA. I really don't think it will be a negative factor for you at all.
-With your quant score, you're not all that far away from a score that would be extremely competitive, so it's probably on that borderline between "nonfactor" and "liability" for you, depending on the school. I'd offer this - if you think you can demonstrate quantitative skill elsewhere in your application (collegiate coursework and grades; the nature of your current profession; courses you've taken since graduation to continue to build quant skills), then I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you know going into your application that you'll likely look a little weak quantitatively, then you may want to consider retaking if you're looking exclusively at top-tier schools. My hunch is that you'll be okay without the retake, but if you see your quant skills as a possible Achilles' heel for you, then you may want to see how you can address that.
I hope that helps - most importantly, congratulations!
|
