Defer for a Chance at Top-Tier or Rice MBA (full-ride)?
If you had to choose between Rice MBA (with almost full-ride scholarship) or delaying b-school for two years* to go to a more prestigious school, which would you go with?
- assuming it takes ~18 months to beef up an application to reapply to a top tier school.
It doesn't take 18 months to beef up an application (as long as you have 3 years of experience). The only thing you need to do is to have a 720+ GMAT, and create something innovative (I would suggest community service).
The standard is not that high.
All the other things: current job, undergraduate GPA cannot be changed easily and I think you would be wasting your resources changing job for the sake of going to B-school.
Wouldn't bother with GPA. Current GMAT 690 (high verbal, low quant). Frankly, I'm exhausted with the b-school process, and am not sure I'm up to pushing the GMAT higher in the next 6 months in time for round 1.
WE - got 3 years, BUT I need to change industries, since I've been in the nonprofit/gov/education sector. It might make me "interesting", but shouldn't I do something in industry so I can show I meant what I said in all those career goals essays? Seems lame to stay in the same job when I know it's getting me nowhere....
i would not do rice unless you want to be in houston.
if you do want to be in houston, there is no reason to turn down a free ride that can get you where you want to go (given the 2 choices you presented).
Set realistic expectations. I know a guy who took the GMAT 3 times, and failed to break 700. Unless you're consistently scoring 750+ in your MGMAT practice tests, don't take it again.
If you've already applied once and been rejected, re-applying won't help. Especially since M7 admissions get more difficult every year.
In conclusion, choose Rice. It's a great school, and placement in Texas is top-notch.
You're right. Going with Rice. And I do like Houston and that's the #1 place I want to work after graduation. Might want to move eventually but by then WE and network should be bigger factors than school. I don't know if I'm excited about the energy industry itself, but the opportunities are excellent right now and I've got a good network there.
The opportunity cost isn't worth it. I don't know what I was thinking, just got some doubt for a while. People like to shit on RIce because it's not top tier and it doesn't really get you to wall street, but I don't want to live/work in NYC anyway. I'll take the win.
Thanks for the replies.
Dude, go to Rice. It's a great school.
Rice gets a ton of respect in Houston. And at this point Houston is a pretty happenin' place to be..
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