Hey dragoon:
I am jealous. Some part of the well was which I had on into the military. My whole family has been active duty, including my brother will never let me live it down. Actually grew up a military brat, and I spent some time in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
What I particularly respected about your candidacy is that you have a lot leadership experience at a young age. While I know this may be fairly common, for those of your rank, it is still highly regarded by admissions committees. But I digress.
MBAmath.com is a decent tool. It should help you in demonstrating quantitative proficiency. However, I honestly believe that there is simply no replacement for actually taking a course. I would look into distance learning opportunities. It does not matter what the name of the school is or if you physically attend campus. The only thing that matters is that you take a course in finance/accounting and that you get an A in the class. An economics class might help as well. Basically, I would take a class that is a core subject and get a perfect grade in it. The Harvard online modules and MIT courseware are good to have and good to mention on your application, but it is not as strong of a proxy as getting a letter grade will be.
The bottom line is that if an admissions committee likes what they have to see, then they will admit you. I believe this to be the case with you. Your overall strength of application should be strong enough to overcome this quantitative deficiency. Especially if you take a community college, online course. Let me put it to you another way -- they may have concerns about your quantitative ability, but the reality is that they only report the overall score to US news or BusinessWeek. So in the end, what really only wags the dog is your total cumulative score.
You are not crazy to bring this up on your application and I would address it in the optional essay. Get out in front of the issue, they see thousands of resumes and applications. It is not like they are going to miss this, they know what to look for. Especially if you have a unique background, like yours.
What I do think that you should do is actually ask an admissions committee member this very question. You should be going to events online or off. Bring it up at an event and see what the admissions committee member has to say. Hopefully you can build a rapport with one or two admissions committee members, and hopefully they will provide you a forthright answer.
If you would like to discuss your options further, please e-mail me at
MBA@amerasiaconsulting.com.
Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti