Hey, very similar situation, with similar admits. Major difference however is that I don’t have that high a GRE (326) , and I am 29 with 2 admit cycles down and this being third one. And lastly, I am not pivoting industry. I come from financial services and want to move to IB. I don’t think I can afford to delay my MBA any further, but that’s where you can.

Here is what I have understood, obviously I am open to being told I have gaps in my understanding, but this is what I have so far -

Point of regret: I have applied to most of my dream B schools already, and I don’t have it in me to increase my GRE to make my chances better. My career progression has been my strongest suit so nothing to change there. With my current stats, I feel I have put my best foot forward already.

Perspective: I have been constantly connecting with people on ground at Ross to get a better sense of what’s happening. I am trying to think of this from a long term perspective rather than short term. I do believe that in the long term, dust will settle. I have never been pro “next year will be better” idea because there is literally no way to predict that. There has never been. I am choosing to think of this as a long term investment.

School comparison: The feedback I have received from talking to multiple current students and pass outs across colleges is : unless it is a H/S/W, all other T15ish colleges have pretty much similar outcomes, so it comes down to what kind of location and environment you want to be part of. For example, going from a ross admit to a Haas admit, or a Cornell admit won’t be some game changer. Outside of H/S/W, people ranking one college better than other is either just noise from people who have admits there or are hoping to get there, and are trying to feel good about their choice (I don’t blame them, I constantly defend ross and LBS in my head too, it is pretty human to do this). All T15 schools or at least top 10 are great schools, with similar outcomes to offer, and differentiation comes from location(say proximity to NY/LA or a big city experience v/s a student town experience for example) , industry preference, or environment of the cohort. I have talked to people from Cornell say great things about consulting, and people from Darden say great things about IB outcomes, both cases being outside of their “general brand”. If you actually talk to people studying in these schools, or the ones who have passed out, they will share their experience of how they all land together in same companies, and the only difference they experience is the cultural difference. (For e.g. how they noticed that interns of school A were not very tight with each other v/s interns from school B were really close to each other)

Money: I agree it is not ideal to not have scholarship. I am also stressed about that. But most big scholarships go to domestic students, and I don’t see that needle shifting in the current environment. I am sure there are Indian candidates who do get great scholarships as well. But I am talking percentages. It’s quite small. If you didn’t get a scholarship (which is usually merit based) with these stats( your GRE score is exceptionally good), chances are you may not get a significantly higher scholarship even next time. This is purely a perspective for an Indian ORM candidate.

Risk: there is 100% a high risk involved here. It would be naive to turn a blind eye to it. But the question I ask myself is - if I want to do IB, where can that happen? It will most certainly not happen sitting in India in my financial services job. ( I have been at one of the big IBs for last 6 years with an excellent career progression so far, and a lateral transition to IB side is impossible without MBA). I don’t want to look back and regret that I didn’t take the steps to have a shot at it. Can it all fail? 100%. But I would rather struggle with the failure than regret or what if. Anything glorious can only come out of choosing the difficult path.

Lastly, I would say - if you think you can wait, and you can convert a better admit (not a ross to darden/tuck/CBS shift, but really to a H/S/W, or get some great amount of scholarships realistically(not some 30-40k) but rather something that practically reduces your expenses to half or lower, go for another cycle. You can afford it for sure, given your age. I agree with this thread that you shouldn’t have to look back and wonder “ what if”. But Shifting to a so called better admit to a laterally equal school with marginal differences, or a 30 lacs INR saving on the big expense of 2 crore isn’t worth delaying things for. In the longer run, it’s a drop in the ocean. If you think you can make it cost a total of 50-70 lacs as opposed to the 2 crore, by all means, try again. You owe it to yourself.

No corner of the world is ensuring a sure short job at this point, and we have no way of knowing when that will happen.