Hi Rich, I appreciate your helpful response! My ultimate goal is to absolutely go the PhD track, so I have decided to take the GRE again. I have discussed this with a couple professors I had in undergrad, and they both encouraged me to give it one last shot. The logic is that if the difference between a good and great career path is the difference between a good and great program, I should do everything I can to make it into that great program — even if it means forking over a couple extra dollars to do so.
Altogether, I have decided to follow both of your pieces of advice. Not only am I going to take the test again, but I also plan on applying to less selective programs. Last application cycle, I made the critical mistake of applying almost exclusively to reach programs, failing to consider how competitive business school PhD programs actually are. I am currently compiling a list of schools more within my current GRE score range, and I have found that a 317 aggregate score isn't too far off from the average scores of accepted students at Tier-2 schools. Still, I definitely want to go for more security than that. My hope is to get at least a 320 on my next (and hopefully last) GRE.
For my previous test, I studied (see also: crammed) for a solid month. I paid for a six-month Magoosh subscription and watched a majority of their math lessons, since the math section is what I struggled with most in the past. A lot of it was just reminding myself how to do high school-level math (e.g., exponent, permutations, probability). I was even doing consistently well on practice tests. I scored a V: 164, Q: 163 on a Magoosh practice test and even managed a V: 170, Q: 166 on an ETS Powerprep test. I felt super confident going into the exam, but maybe nerves just got in the way. So much for the 4-5 hours I spent studying every day for a month, I thought. Anyway, I'm going in for one last ditch effort at the marketing PhD program of my dreams. Here's hoping the last exam was a fluke and some extra months studying will give me scores closer to what I got in practice.