Work ex or not?

[aoopaf]

Hey!
I have received an admit from Boston University's MS in Mathematical Finance and Financial Technology. Although I am awaiting other admits, I do like the courses offered by BU. The curriculum has enough rigour and helps us get a good grasp over Mathematical Finance. The alumnis also give it a good rating, with respect to its courses, faculty, and the overall pedagogy of the program.
Now coming to my concern, I have a quant score of 169 and a 7.2 gpa that can be pushed to 7.5-7.6 (if I apply next year), according to the current trajectory.
My question to y'all is that, is it worth risking the admit I have at the moment, by taking a year of work/internship ex and applying once again?
Just like everyone, tier 1 colleges is the ultimate goal. So would it be worth, to take that work ex, and try for a tier 1 college?
Or would it not matter so much? Since all I have been told is that, what matters is the amount of effort you put into a program and as long as the program is good(which I am very sure, BU is), other factors can be neglected.
FYI I do want to stay in the US and work there.
Kindly advise.

 

[lolalin]

In my opinion this depends on your career goals and how much you care about prestige and name.

If you want to work at top HFs like SIG, BAM, I think it's best to get that GPA as high as you can and do work experience in something quant and apply to top programs like CMU, Columbia, Berkeley, etc.

If you don't care about brand name and are okay with grinding a bit more than others (BU might not have access to the networking opps the top programs have) and would like to jump into a MS program ASAP, then I would accept that BU offer.