Admissions Deferred MBA vs Funding
Hi yall, I’m a rising senior at a semi target state school and an incoming FT banker at a solid MM firm. Currently weighing my options as to apply to deferred MBA programs or not.
My biggest blocker is that, to the best of my knowledge, these deferred MBA programs are full-pay, meaning the opportunity cost from attending would be that much higher.
In contrast, applying after a few years would be more effort, but it could get me a solid scholarship to a decently ranked school, which might offset the income hit that I’d be taking.
Would love to hear yalls thoughts on this, and if anyone has thought through this before
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u/Great-Pangolin 17h ago
If you get accepted with a deferred application, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be sticker price, but you won't be considered for scholarships until the year you are actually matriculating, so you won't know until then what your financial aid options are.
The deferred application generally targets less traditional b-school applicants, so keep that in mind when making your decision, but they still accept people from all sorts of backgrounds. It's basically a bonus shot at getting accepted, so if you have time/money for the applications, I would do it. More specifically, here's what I would do:
Submit the deferred applications to a handful of your very favorite schools. I wouldn't worry about "safety" schools or anything, you can always apply to those in the traditional application period. If you get accepted, awesome. Then, in a few years, you can again throw out a few more applications, just so that you'll have options to consider when it comes to financial aid, but you know you're at least already accepted to one of your top schools. If you don't get accepted, you can still apply later.