I have a somewhat unique background for an MBA applicant. As I work towards applying, I'd like advice on how best to position my candidacy to the adcom.

I graduated from a well-respected, small liberal arts school with a double-major in economics and political science and a 3.56 GPA. I was pretty active on campus. I was on the Board of the school's radio station for 3 years, was in a fraternity, and studied abroad in Australia my junior year.

Since undergraduate, I have worked exclusively on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. I work for a Member of the United States House who is on the House Financial Services Committee, and I handle my boss's financial services-related legislative duties. I have written bills; routinely work with stakeholders in the banking, capital markets, housing, and crypto industries; and work with federal regulators like the SEC, FDIC, Treasury, etc. I work to inform my boss about the goings on of the financial markets and craft potential solutions (if necessary) to try and fix problems. As a result, I have a reasonable amount of high-level knowledge of how these markets work, and unique access to industry experts despite the fact that I am in a government role.

I see two potential paths for my career ahead, but am still unsure which I'd like to take:

1. Stay in Washington, DC and continue working while obtaining an MBA at night. Folks who work on financial services and banking policy in DC often have advanced economics degrees or MBAs (generic masters in public policy are generally considered less helpful). This is a well-tread path that would be a logical next-step in a DC-based career that could end in either high-level government work (perhaps at an agency) or maybe even in government affairs.

2. Pivot altogether and do something else. Ideally, I would love to work in the venture capital world. I have family that worked as VCs and the work is extremely engaging. That being said, I know cracking into the VC world can be tough at first. Working in PE or in the asset management world would be very interesting as well.

Right now, I am preparing to take the GRE. I took a practice and scored pretty well on my verbal (164), but will need to bump up my quantitative. I'm going to be working through the summer to get my quant score into the 160s.

If I could get a good GRE score by the end of the Summer, I'm thinking I could broaden my horizons past the part-time MBA world and look at some of the top-ten programs. However, I am keenly aware that my work experience is not typical for an MBA applicant. I'm wondering if there's any way to leverage that experience into an asset rather than a question mark.