semester off?

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

<p><strong><em>I posted this on the law boards a while back, but thought I'd post it here as well. I by no means am set on going into law and still am considering an mba so i figure getting feed back over here would be a good idea</em></strong></p>

<p>I am contemplating taking a semester off from school. I don't have a good reason. I am just pretty burnt out, and my motivation to do well in my classes has just run out. It wouldnt be smart to put myself through another semester and assume anything will be different, if it might potentially lead to some less than ideal grades. So I need to just get through this semester unscathed, and do something else in the fall, then come back and finish school.</p>

<p>I am wondering, how is a random semester off from undergrad viewed when applying to mba programs. Would I need to have a good reason to have done this? will they look at the transcript and ask "what was this time off about"? I'm not sure how it would look.</p>

<p>As an alternative to that, I'm considering maybe taking just one class so I can, maybe, at least accomplish something during this break. Would there potential disincentives to this course of action? It seems that potentially the one class could even be worse than no class. If I was not enrolled at all, then it, potentially, could be assumed that there was any number of good reasons for it. But if I was actually at school and had opted out of a full course load maybe there'd be more reason to think I was just being lazy or something. </p>

<p>anyone know anything about how this works.</p>

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<p>I’m sure you could easily give a good excuse, but it probably won’t be necessary at all. Taking a semester off is not that big of a deal.</p>

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<p>ya on the mba boards and the graduate school boards this seems to be the attitude.
but for some reason, those on the law school site are basically saying that their wisdom has always been time off should be limited; that it shows a weakness.
my instinct seems to be that it could certainly be spun negatively by admission committees. though I don’t see how they could make any conclusions when there are so many different reasons that one could take time off.
To hold an opinion, which is based on so many assumptions, against someone would seem hard to do.
But if you’re talking about top schools where there is so little that seperates one person from the next. Maybe that’s all it takes to knock you down in comparison to the competition. I can see how that could happen. I’m just not sure.</p>

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<p>(nearly all) MBA applicants have post graduate work experience. Thus, the academic background of an applicants is less important than that of other graduate schools. For law school, the academic background is all they really have to judge you by.</p>