Probably the worst thing possible has happened. My employer recently found out that I have been looking to apply to business school. Since then it has pretty much been a hostile work envirnment. I have been mistreated, given horrible almost impossible work assignments. This is bad because I am now completely stressed and miserable AND more importantly the crazy amount of hours I'm putting in are taking up precious time to devote to my applications. I plan to apply early to Columbia.

I have a few questions.

1) How does it look to b-schools if I were to quit my current job?
2) What type of job should I look for if I do quit given it will be less than a year until I enroll (assuming I get in)
3) How do you explain this situation to admissions?
4) Should I just suck it up and stay in order to have the continuity on my resume? (assuming they don't fire me)

FYI - I work at a middle-market investment banking and have for the past 3.5 years. I am an analyst to associate promote and have been treated great until this point.

Please any help would be greatly appreciated

Only you know your threshhold.

If you can hack it, suck it up and hold on if you can. Especially if the alternatives you're thinking of are finance-related (as a banker I'm sure you know firsthand how bad it is out there). It's ugly out there. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but suck it up if you can, and then quit when (or if) you get into Columbia (you find out pretty quickly actually if you submit for Early Decision - before Christmas). And once you're in, you can say adios to them and go on a boat cruise around the world (hookers n' blow are optional - I'm kidding, or not).

However, it it really is so bad that it's torture, first thing to do is to hold on for dear life, and try to find another job before leaving. Whatever that job is, I don't know. That's unfortunately something you need to figure out.

As for how adcoms will see this -- it won't really impact the application either way, since they're evaluating you based on what you've done to date as well as your future goals, knowing that whether you're at your current job or you're about to quit, the next 9-12 months are a transition period anyhow before b-school.

In other words, don't worry about what adcoms think, and worry more about your own current situation.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com

Thank you Alex. Your reply is very helpful. I think I will just tough it out as much as possible and just go on a day-to-day basis and see how it goes.