Finally admitted...but advice needed
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21 Jun 2012, 09:11
Hi all - thanks in advance for any advice you can give on my situation. I'm not sure there's anything to do at this point, and my situation could obviously be much worse, but I'm a little bit nervous and I want to make sure I make the best of the rest of my summer.
As background, I was working in an engineering role and want to make the switch to investment management. I decided last fall to go the b-school route and applied to several schools R2. On top of the stress of applying to business school, I then became unemployed at around the same time I was submitting my apps. At the time, I planned on waiting to hear back from schools, using that time as my pre-MBA vacation, and then when I knew where I was headed contacting alums to try to set up a pre-MBA internship.
Unfortunately, March and April passed without any admits. After coming to terms with this, I shifted strategies and began applying for full-time positions in investment management. That process had not yet culminated in any offers, but miraculously I just got into one of my schools off the summer waitlist.
I plan on starting to contact some alums next week, but with school starting in August I assume there isn't enough time left to set something up other than some informational interviews. I feel that I've otherwise been productive with my time off. I took the CFA level 1 test and have been absorbing as much as I can about the industry.
I guess my question is how will this gap look to employers once I'm actually in school? I'm sure in this economy I'm not the only person to have gone through this, and clearly it wasn't a deciding factor for the school. I'm just worried about the prospect of dropping six figures on school and then having potential employers be turned off by a huge gap right before I started. Any ideas about what to do now and/or how to spin this once I start interview season?