Considering Retaking GRE, Advice Welcome

[HansMaguire]

I took the GRE back in Spring 2016, and I got the following scores:

Verbal: 168

Quantitative: 165

Analytical Writing: 4.5

I studied heavily for the verbal portion in order to boost my score and did not study much for the quantitative portion, as I felt confident that I would do well enough in it.

I then went to graduate school to get a Master's in a computer science field related to Big Data, which I am currently pursuing.

I am thinking about pursuing a Ph.D. program in Statistics after this Master's, as I am particularly interested in the statistical side of Big Data, and my end goal is to become a professor. My undergraduate program was a math degree with a statistics concentration, and I got a 4.0 in-major, with a 3.98 overall. In graduate school, I currently have approximately a 3.9 GPA. I am planning to apply for entrance to a Ph.D. program for Fall 2019.

One of the schools I am looking at says that "most successful PhD applicants have a quantitative score of at least 166 and a verbal score of at least 153." This school typically admits 3 to 4 students out of a pool of nearly 100 applicants each year. Is it worth taking the GRE again to get a higher quantitative score, or am I worrying a bit too much about this?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Deep Fried Angst]

Retaking the GRE has two possible things in your favor: 1) you may get better scores. Frankly, what the school says about what their "most successful PhD applicants" have is what you should have. Are there exceptions? Of course. Don't bank on being the exception. Study. Retake. Get the score you need. 

2) You will have a newer score. While GRE scores don't technically expire for 5 years, some schools will want scores that are less than 3 years old. With an application going out this year and a score from 2 years ago, a newer score may help. It may not. But not taking it again could hurt.

Remember that in an applicant pool of 100 with only accepting 3-4 students the committee is looking for not only 3-4 students to admit but over 90 to reject. Your best bet is to do everything in your power to prevent anything in your application from being able to be rejected. A score even one point lower than the standard or a test a couple years older won't necessarily eliminate you from contention. But when it comes down to the wire, it honestly could be a part of the decision. 

[Jessejests]

If you do decide to re-take the GRE, I HIGHLY recommend the 5lbs. Book of GRE Practice Problems. It's amazing for practicing for the quantitative section, and it even has a bonus section for those looking to achieve the perfect score on the section.