Just took July Flex. Now do I take August or October?

ttblinks

Hi everyone! I just took the July flex (my first time). It felt good overall (not terrible, not great) and I went into the exam assuming I would register for the August flex as well. However, now that I've thought about it does it make more sense to not do August and potentially register for October?

August deadline to register is July 15th, but July flex results don't come out until July 30th leaving me in kind of a limbo until the end of July. If I register now for August and I end up being happy with my July score then I'm out $150. I guess I'm just wondering if there's a general rule of thumb to not register for your next exam until you get your results back?

Background info: Aiming for 170+ and have been scoring between 168-178 in recent PTs (all over I know ). I'm a teacher so I will be two weeks into the school year for August test and a month+ for October. I want to apply relatively early to be considered for merit scholarships so I don't know if October is too late to take it?