Leeway with undergrad transcripts
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03 Jun 2014, 11:47
I'm currently an undergraduate at Saginaw Valley State University, but I haven't exactly taken a common path. Starting off at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I received the Michigan Experience Scholarship and thought I was on a golden path to success. I struggled but moved along during my freshman year, but by my sophomore year it was clear that something was wrong; it got to the point where four hours of sleep in one night was considered a minor miracle in my life. I was in a very dark place mentally during my junior year, and I was eventually diagnosed with major depression. I didn't see any improvement in my life until it was too late to recover from an academic standpoint at UM, so I transferred to SVSU (losing half of my credit in the process) and changed majors from actuarial science to finance and economics. My GPA at UM was poor (started at a 2.9 and eventually regressed to a 2.2), but I'm going to graduate from SVSU with a 3.85 at the very worst (that's obviously not an average of my SVSU and UM grades). I'm scheduled to take the GMAT in September and, after taking multiple scored practice tests, I feel as if a 700 is definitely within reach.
All that said, this is my question: How much weight will MBA programs put on my Michigan transcript, and will the fact that I've recovered help my cause in any way? Leaving an elite school like Michigan for a small school like SVSU looks bad enough, but it was something I had to do for more than one reason. I'm very involved in the community and will have at least 2 years of relevent work experience by the time I apply to MBA programs, but I'm still skeptical of my chances of being accepted to a top-20 program.