Hi All,
I'm usually a lurker but am hoping to be candid as I am having a hard time with this issue. Hopefully some of you have vast and broad life experience and can chime in. I graduated ugrad with an extremely poor gpa (sup 3.0, ivy) and have been working very hard to overcome it. Over the past 4.5 yrs I've made every social sacrifice and moved to an undesirable location away from family and friends to gain the experience I needed to get into bschool. My dream was a top bschool program. This past application season I put together solid apps and was admitted to UNC (no $) and Duke ($) and rejected by a top 5 and a top 10.
I was thrilled and very grateful to be in at Duke however when I attended Duke's BDW for admitted students, I did not enjoy it. The students were rowdy and the atmosphere did not feel as academic as that of other programs, I am much more reserved. I enjoyed UNC however I would only consider going if offered a substantial scholarship. After all the sacrifices I've made I realize I need to achieve better life balance and am unsure if I want to attend. And to be completely honest, I haven't done very well nor enjoyed the corporate world (IT and Ops consulting) despite my sacrifices and am wondering if I should make a large career switch or switch into a non-business field altogether. I'm wondering what the point is of taking on debt to delay being happy.
Goals:
-Move to a desirable location
-A job with relatively flexible hours ie no face time, work as many hours as necessary to do a good job (things that come to mind: tech, work for a few years then entrepreneurship/small business owner, gov/NGO, writing/comms)
-low expectations of salary growth, satisfied with 150k all in 7 years time (current salary ~100k)
-good family life/ around friends
Fuqua:
Pros
-Best reputation in intended industry
-Small scholarship
-Possibility of dual degree (although this would increase debt)
Cons
-Student body culture/backgrounds
-Location
Negotiate with UNC:
Con:
-Was an ED applicant, and deposit deadline has passed so is this an acceptable thing to do?
Forgo Bschool and travel/figure out life for a few months then look for job/other credentials/schooling:
Pro:
-lowest cost option
-Short term happiness
Con:
-least defined, uncertainty
I realize this is a very atypical blog post and that I risk sounding incredibly ungrateful and lazy. I am incredible grateful. Since this is a crowd of current/future consultants, please help framework my life!