To Reinstate or not to reinstate

[GMATTER0101]

Greetings,

Wanted to get some thoughts on possibly reinstating my score.

First GMAT 2011: 710 overall 92 percentile (45 quant 71 percentile... 41 verbal 92 percentile)

Second GMAT 2015: 700 Overall (49 Quant 79th percentile ... 35 Verbal 74th Percentile) IR = 6 (67th percentile)

My question is should I reinstate my second GMAT? Given that Quant went up, but Verbal went down and overall score went down.

Thoughts much appreciated!!

[StaceyKoprince]

This is a tough one - not an obvious answer. The overall score is essentially the same, so ignore that part. Things to consider:

(1) If you had gotten the two sets of scores but in reverse order, you'd be asking the same question, right? There's something good about each one and something less good about each one. If a school is concerned about your quant abilities, then showing them a 49 vs. a 45 would really help. You still have to tell the school the one score that you want them to use when considering your application, so you could ask the school what they emphasize or what they might be concerned about to help you decide which score would be more important for them to see.

(2) Your 2011 score will expire in 2016. When are you planning to apply?

(3) Are you planning a re-take? You may be able to score at the higher end on both sections at the same time!

(4) Have you talked to any admissions consultants? What do they say relative to the rest of your profile? If your background is not very quant heavy, then having that 49 score may be important.

You have 60 days to reinstate, so depending on when that test was, you have some time to make your decision. Was it super recent, like two days ago? If so, then you may be ready to re-take before the 60 days are up and see how you do before you have to decide. If you keep quant and lift verbal, then you have a better score on record and you don't have to pay the $100 to reinstate. And if you can't keep that quant score high, then you may want to reinstate just to be able to show that higher quant score, just in case.

Finally: I don't think there's any drawback to having both on record from a b-school point of view. The only drawback is the $100. (And at some point you'll then have to decide which score you want to tell them is "the" score that you want them to consider. But that's just an annoying decision, not really a drawback.)

[GMATTER0101]

Thank you Stacey for the feedback. You are spot on with my concerns.

Mainly I am worried about the Quant score being too low. I do work in management consulting, which is a very analytical field and I studied finance in undergrad as well. In consulting, I am definitely towards the top of my class for my analytical abilities and I did very well in my undergraduate coursework as well. Additionally, I've taken courses such as Calculus 1, Calculus 2 and Statistics (all of which are As).

That being said, I will consider a retake but ideally I am targeting R1 submissions of my applications. Personally I feel there may be more advantages to R1 submission, but however I've heard mixed things about R1 vs R2 advantages.

Please let me know if you have any further insights given this.

Appreciate it!!

[StaceyKoprince]

I don't know that much about admissions - not my area of expertise. Have you talked to any admissions consultants? They would have more insight into that piece of things. (MBA Mission offers a free 30 minute phone consult.)

If what they have to say also doesn't give you a strong pointer in one direction...if it were me, I'd pay the $100 to reinstate.

As I said, there isn't a drawback to having both sets of scores on record - they're all good scores overall. So I'd rather have the flexibility to reference both sets / either set of scores. And $100 is not much money in the b-school grand scheme of things.