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Given that the MBA is designed to advance your highest professional ambitions while changing your life in the process, none of these scenarios should be taken lightly. As admissions coaches and former business school admissions professionals, my Fortuna Admissions<\/a> colleagues and I are practiced at supporting candidates facing an array of game-changing decisions. I asked my colleagues for their advice on three of common scenarios we see in the wake of Round 2 decisions.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Scenario 1: Choosing between competing offers from two of your dream schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThis is the best kind of problem to have, of course, although the choice can feel agonizing,\u201d says Fortuna\u2019s Malvina Miller Complainville<\/a>, former Harvard Business School Assistant Director of Career Services.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re considering offers from two (or more) dream programs, Malvina advises to sideline the rankings and get personal about the details. Here are Malvina\u2019s five key considerations:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Scenario 2: Do you take a scholarship offer that\u2019s not from your first choice program?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAn MBA is a huge investment, so receiving a scholarship, even when it\u2019s not from your top-choice school, is obviously something to take seriously,\u201d says Fortuna\u2019s Catherine Tuttle<\/a>, former Duke Fuqua Associate Program Director.<\/p>\n When this happens, Catherine recommends that you inform your top-choice school that you have money on the table elsewhere. While it won\u2019t guarantee a counter-offer, you never know unless you ask.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Catherine\u2019s advice on optimizing your chances:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAnd if your top choice school can\u2019t offer additional funds, at this point, allow program culture to enter your decision,\u201d adds Catherine. \u201cWhether you go with the scholarship opportunity or not, you want to feel confident your chosen school is the right fit from a cultural, academic and career standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Scenario 3: Take an offer from your safety school \u2013 or reapply again next year?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt matters what you consider a safety school,\u201d says Fortuna\u2019s Judith Silverman Hodara<\/a>, former Wharton head of Admissions. \u201cI had client who got into Booth, and his bosses told him he should hold out for GSB or HBS. Given his profile, I advised him to take Booth\u2019s offer. Why? In all honesty, he would never really know what had kept him out of HBS or GSB, and, as they say, a bird in hand in this case was well worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s different, of course, if you suspect your application wasn\u2019t good enough or didn\u2019t give it your best effort,\u201d says Judith. \u201cMaybe you can concede that an additional year of leadership experience or work could make a difference. Or you might sense you got into your safety school too easily, and that it\u2019s not as worthy because you didn\u2019t struggle for it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n While each situation is unique, Judith recommends reflecting on the following questions:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, I like to tell candidates to flip a coin on the answer \u2013 not to do what the coin says, but gut-check how you feel about the outcome,\u201d says Judith. \u201cThis little trick can tell you a lot about how to proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fortuna Admissions<\/em><\/a> Expert Coach <\/em>Heidi Hillis<\/em><\/a> is a Stanford GSB graduate and served as a GSB alumni interviewer for several years. A version of this article was originally published in Prodigy Finance on February 16, 2018. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are you in the rare and enviable position of receiving offers from two of your dream schools? Maybe you\u2019ve been offered a sizable scholarship, but not from your top choice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1831,775,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-fortuna-admissions","category-admission-consultants","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Deciding between admissions offers: three common MBA decision scenarios<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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