taehyun89 wrote:
Until recently I was working as an Associate Commodity Trader for a Commodity Trading company. I've had the opportunity to work in Ghana, Singapore, and Dallas. I decided to apply a year earlier than the average b-school applicant (5 years) because I was hoping my international exposure would cover up my lack of work experience.
Anyways I applied to the M7 schools in round 1 and got dinged at all of them. In round 2 applied to the top 20 schools. I am waiting to hear back from most of them in the next couple weeks. I already got into one of my round 2 schools back in Feb, at which point I decided to quit my job and come back home, help my father with the family business, and try to find a pre-MBA internship till August.
Now, a couple days ago my company called me and asked me if I would be interested in coming back if they gave me a promotion.
I think I have 2 options:
1) turn down the promotion.....stick to my originally plan and attend one of my round-2 schools
2) take the promotion..... turn down any admissions I get from my round-2 schools, which I'm assuming would forever ban me from gaining admission again if I choose to apply to these schools again in a couple years. HOWEVER, this option would provide me with an opportunity to reapply to the M7 schools with a promotion and an extra 1-2 years of work experience.
For reference I scored a 720 on my GMAT and have a 3.2 GPA from a top-20 college (I know my GPA is a little low for a M7 school, but it's also the one thing I can't change). I also volunteer as a GED Instructor at the library where I help high school dropouts pass their GED. I also practice Kendo, Japanese fencing, competitively.
I understand that it ultimately comes down to how much of a risk-taker I am, but I would like to know the what everyone thinks of Option#2 working out.
If you could help me with this dilemma, I'd greatly appreciate it.
I was in a similar position last year. My company, where I enjoy working very much, offered me a promotion to stay on rather than attending an M7 school.
I feared that I would not be readmitted to business school down the line because I had already turned schools down. However, the schools were very understanding of the circumstances and I was able to gain admission again without even going through the full process (they said I would just be treated as a deferral).
I don't think that option #2 is particularly risky. This is moreso a matter of what you want to be doing for the next year, whether you would be willing to attend the school(s) to which you've been admitted, and whether another year of pre-MBA experience (read: age) may hurt your candidacy going forward. For some context, at the two admit weekends that I've attended, almost everyone had 4 years of work experience. Some had 2 or 3, but I was easily the highest with 6.
Could you expand more on the process you went through from saying you aren't going to attend to reapplying. I'm in the same situation, thinking I'm going to ride an upcoming promotion for another year and not go to school. I basically thought I had 0 chance of the school admitting me again next year, but your post really interests me.