Questionable path to IB or to digging ditches

Hello guys! I have been reading this cool website for over a year now and this is the first time I've actually decided to introduce myself because I really need your help and I feel like no one more than you could relate even a little to my story. I am probably hoping that someone, maybe a little more experienced, would be willing to give me an opinion, so want to thank you everyone who will take some time to read this.

I am a Russian student studying at Bocconi University at my third year and here I'll go straight to the point. My bachelor is a Economics and Computer science , is extremely quantitative and hard. I've always been a very motivated and ambitious girl, however when I began this bachelor, I got lost. Data science was not my thing, I hated most of my exams and lost the motivation to do well because making it to the passing grade was enough of a torture to me. I still managed to land a Spring Week at JPM in the technology department during my first year, but that was my last spark of ambition. Half my way, I joined a finance student club that made me realise how much I enjoy finance over everything else. I began reading about IB, attending events on mergers, talking to people from the club coming from master in finance and genuinely sharing their interest, motivation and drive. However, this whole process lasted too long and I feel more lost and late and hopeless than ever. Here I am at my last semester with a 24/30 gpa that cuts me out from any well-ranked Master in Finance. What I feel really pressured about is that after reading this website for so long, I perfectly know how hard it is to land a job at an IB and how strict all the deadlines are ( spring week 1st year - summer internship 2nd year- job offer after 3rd ),
After I realised how bad the situation is, I tried to figure out what to do to possibly make up for that and make it to the right path.
I tried to take GMAT since it seemed my only way out of a bad gpa, but trying to balance up my exams with gmat was the worst idea ever as I ended up doing badly both.
I then decided to apply to Cass ( my first choice, London seems a great opportunity center plus I am a Russian citizen who needs a sponsorship to work in London unless I complete university there), Frankfurt School and IE as none of these wants GMAT.
I recently got rejected from Cass and I swear that right now I just feel like I got everything wrong from the moment I stepped into University.
After trying to get a grip on my emotions (again), I tried to figure out what to do now.
These are the options I came up with:
- I can take a gap year. Take some months to really nail GMAT, take the rest of the months to do an internship in something finance related ( can't hope for anything in IB) and apply for the next year to Cass. ( I am aware Cass is not the best in London, but nobody will ever take me in LBS or LSE with that gpa). After all, master here is one year only, so taking a year off and then Cass is still the same time of any unknown master in Italy (2 years) or even Frankfurt school.
- Go to an unknown university for master in finance and work hard for the highest gpa possible. What scares me is that I don't really know the trade off behind that. Is it more important to have a high gpa or to be in target uni? Of course both would be ideal, but if I have to choose one?

These are my thoughts and those were the only options that I came up with. I'd be extremely grateful if anyone was willing to give me his/her opinion on whatever part, I am truly lost but I trust the power of this network to bring together people who share common interests and have different perspectives. What would you do if you were me?
Thank you if you read until here,
wish you guys a good evening

 

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