Too late to retake GRE?

[sunpenguin]

I took the GRE in 2009 and scored 770V, 700Q. I was very happy to hit 700 on the quantitative since it covers math I haven't seen since middle or high school, and some things I didn't think I'd ever studied. It's only recently that I've learned how many people score 170 on the new GRE, and how low a 700 is really going to look to adcomms. It's probably above minimum cutoffs, but it might still raise a red flag at more competitive schools.

 

So here's the deal: I'm taking the biology subject exam on Oct. 19, and all my study efforts are going to continue to be focused toward that this week. After that, if I decide to retake the general GRE, I could focus on studying to bring up my Q score. I know the scores take 10-15 days to be reported, so I would need to take the exam by about Nov. 15 to have a hope of the scores getting there by Dec. 1 deadlines. I feel confident I could bring my score up to a much more competitive level with some dedicated study, but I don't know if 2-3 weeks is enough time to do it.

 

I would probably be able to manage about 20 hours of study a week. My background: not a complete idiot mathematically, but I don't use anything beyond basic arithmetic and basic algebra, and sometimes very simple statistics, in my everyday life and my research. I've forgotten almost everything I ever knew about geometry, calculus, statistics, and probability, but probably had enough knowledge at one point that it would come back to me with a little prodding, or at least that I could learn it more quickly the next time around.

 

Any thoughts on whether it's worth dedicating those 2-3 weeks of my life to study? I'm on the fence between giving it a shot, or saying it's a done deal now and I'll just have to let the chips fall where they may.