I was accepted to Wharton, Booth, Haas, and Cornell for MBA class of 2022. WL at Columbia. Wharton, Booth, and Haas offers don't include any scholarship. Cornell offered a full-tuition scholarship. Pre-MBA experience is management consulting and a cross-functional, CoS-like role at Series A/B startup, reporting to the CEO. Post-MBA: I want to find a co-founder in business school and start a business.
When I began applying to schools, I had a singular focus on starting a business as my next career move - regardless of admission to an MBA program. Thus, I'm open to skipping business school altogether. If I am looking for an entrepreneurial network, I might instead apply to YCombinator or TechStars with a cofounder and/or one of my side projects (very small, but profitable in the proof of concept stage). However, I now find myself considering Wharton/Booth/Haas and postponing business ownership to pay off loans in a salaried job after graduation (would look for a startup job in an industry of interest or in a skill-relevant role, ultimately in service of starting my own company). It seems counter-intuitive to put myself in debt if my ultimate goal is to start a business and work for myself. After lots of thinking, reading, some basic calculations, and conversations, I'm still undecided.
I am sure that my final career destination is to start a business. To me, the feeling of ownership/equity is unparalleled by any other job situation. Since ownership and freedom are what I'm primarily after, I don't need access to large amounts of funding to feel like I'm making an impact. I'd rather build slowly and take less institutional funding to retain ownership and control.
I'm curious how you folks would evaluate this decision or any questions that might come up.