Decision - Volunteer vs Paid
Graduted from state school with a 2.8 GPA in 2004 - Majored in Finance (worried about the GPA and lack of school name) GMAT - 660 Work Ex - 3 years in PWM 1 yr as Research Analyst for a top Insurance Co.
I am leaving my current job as a Research Analyst to volunteer over seas in a 3rd world country for a Microfinance company. The plan is when I return from my volunteer experience, I will come back and look to apply to bschools right away. I would like to work at an ibank right after my MBA and then transfer the skills I develop to the Microfinance industry.
Do you guys think it’s a bad idea to go abroad to volunteer or should I have stuck with my current position? My concern is that since I atteneded a no name school and had a low GPA that I need some type of EC activity to make my application look a bit more attractive. Not only that, but I also would like to work in Microfinance after a few years so I think that would make the volunteer experiance that much more valuable to me and my application.
The way I looked at it was, would another year working as a Research Analyst, with no chance of promotion, would that help my application or would a volunteer experience in a developing country be more helpful to my aplication….I went with the over seas volunteer work…
Hopefully I made the right call…..but would love to hear opinions
It would be a mistake if you're changing your life for the purpose of engineering your b-school application.
But it wouldn't be a mistake if you're looking at the volunteer gig as a life experience.
Alex Chu
could you pm me the name of the company, as I am trying to do the same.
That's a very long time to have zero work experience and contribute all your time to an EC. If you do that, you will pretty much have to craft your essays into showing that microfinance is your post-MBA passion, but then would you really need an MBA? One of the biggest things that adcoms are looking or is that you NEED an MBA.
I graduated with a sub-3.0 in engineering and worked as an engineer for 7 yrs. Obviously I need an MBA to get into a business field. That was just a start. To overcome the low GPA I got a 3.9 in my masters in engineering, killed the GMAT, and took leadership positions at a non-profit I really care about (and could show passion in my essays for it).
It's really up to you, but if your heart is into the volunteering opportunity then by all means go for it. But if you're trying to forge a strong app by doing this, then the adcoms (and/or interviewers) will probably see right through it.
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