Jon,
Thanks for the fantastic feedback. One of the biggest issues I've faced is the late start in my career - while travelling overseas was a great experience, it hit the pause button on my life for a good long time, which is something I'm surely regretting.
For what it's worth, in some of the teaching jobs I had, I also worked in designing the overall administrative policies for a few of those places (particularly in the UAE and my 2-year stint at Chungdahm Learning in South Korea, after my promotion to lead instructor). I also had a reduction in teaching hours and more administrative duties thereafter (mostly keeping the peace between a bunch of twenty-something expats and upper management). Not sure if that helps at all, but there you have it.
Thanks for the kind words on my writing ability. Didn't study one second for GMAT verbal, and still hit the 98th percentile, although I misread the clock at one point during the test and rushed through maybe 5 questions near the end, so even that score is improvable. I'm fairly confident that, given a month or so of pretty intense study time, I can wring out a 720-730 or so. Thankfully I left the exam three weeks ago knowing exactly what I needed to improve.
Insofar as all of my experience is concerned, you're right in that it isn't terribly cohesive. I have some pretty good reasons for my switch from education to finance and accounting, but as I mentioned previously, postponing life for a few years is a black mark against me. While I'd love to work in education (and am fairly passionate about it), I'm not sure getting an MBA and pushing back into that realm is cost-effective enough.
On to the nitty-gritty a bit, my fear in getting an MBA from a University that isn't ultra-well-regarded is the thought of carrying $100k in debt and nobody caring that I have an MBA. Hence my high aims. There are certainly other fantastic schools out there that aren't MIT or Stanford, but I'm at a bit of a crossroads in figuring out which would be the best fit. I chose finance because, well, I really, really like it (and realized too late into my accounting degree that it should have been a finance degree), and frankly because most MBA programs have the most interesting and robust offerings in that field.
To be 100% honest, "running the show" doesn't interest me nearly as much as determining the best way that show should be run. Corporate organization and efficiency is my wheelhouse (and most of my previous employers would tell you that), and likely the best fit for me would be something in strategy consulting.
So, safety schools. Most of my research has come via consulting various ranking lists, visiting school web pages, and so on, but that rarely gives the whole story (for example, Bocconi's finance MS is ranked maybe mid-30s, but they have some of the best placement in London IB out of any school you'll find in the world. IE, on the other hand, is usually ranked in the top 3, and no one in London has heard of them). As such, simply going further down the list and seeing how I stack up in regards to average GMAT, GPA, and experience is certainly deficient, but also really the only approach I know to take. Another good example is the fact that Notre Dame's MBA is ranked higher than Yale's, but I meet or exceed mean values for those granted admissions in most aspects for ND, but likely don't have a snowball's chance in Hell to get into frickin' Yale.
Notre Dame, for what it's worth, looks like a pretty fantastic fit for me, if that means anything - they have a consulting track, fantastic placement, and a big philosophical focus on social, community, and corporate responsibility, which I think fits into my resume rather well.
Doing a little research on it, I think a few other schools that would fit me well are:
1. Notre Dame - Consulting track
2. Vanderbilt - Strategy or Human and Organizational Performance track
3. Ohio State University - Strategy or Leadership and Organizational Behavior track
Would you consider those "safety" schools, or am I still aiming too high? I've listed them in order of preference.
And, thankfully, one of my jobs gives me three hours or so each day of sitting and getting paid, so plenty of time to study and write admissions essays
.
Thanks again for all of your great advice, and I can guarantee my essays can and will blow everyone out of the water.