MBA Admissions Consultant
Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 2457
Given Kudos: 2
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: Alternate Transcript Question
[#permalink]
26 Mar 2012, 21:39
Duff,
To be honest, I don't think you need to go beyond the top 16.
As a SEAL (or any officer in the US special forces units), you will be competitive for *any* top 16 school, including H/S/W. In short, don't screw up your application, and you'll have a decent shot of getting in. B-schools have had great experiences with US military vets and particularly special forces guys (they tend to do well in b-school, and employers also covet them), so adcoms will have a pretty favorable impression of you just by virtue of who you are. You probably already know this and you may be trying to be hyper aware about not being over confident, but I don't think that should be an issue.
The key thing is being able to show that you understand what aspects of your military leadership experience is applicable, relevant and transferable to a civilian (and in particular a business/corporate) environment, and which aspects of your military experience isn't as relevant. And this goes beyond just some of the surface level obvious stuff (i.e. combat). It's really about showing that you understand the differences in group dynamics between a military unit and a civilian one. In most military units, there's a kind of fraternal bond and a sense of purpose beyond the individual that simply doesn't exist to the same degree in the civilian (business) world - the collective values of each individual are not the same as in the military. This goes into another discussion, but those who talk about how fulfilling, rewarding and life changing their leadership experiences are tend to come from the military, sports, etc. It's less common hearing that in a business context - because managing people in a corporate context generally is a pain in the a** -- you're either dealing with people who don't care as much as you want them to care, or you're dealing with primadonnas who resent your position (but will be nice to you to your face), or people who are trying to undermine you -- and unlike the military there is generally less incentive to stick together as its easier to break it apart (i.e. far easier to "leave" a company or get fired, than it is to desert your military unit, and when that is an immediate reality, it affects how you manage people). In short, expect the group dynamics even in the healthiest companies to be more dysfunctional than it might be in a high performance military unit: what separates one company from the next isn't how "healthy" the culture is, but how dysfunctional it is. Again not everything about management sucks (and I'm certain there are folks out there who do enjoy it, find it fulfilling, or even love it), but just don't expect the leadership experience in a business context to be as fulfilling as what you did in the military (maybe even nowhere near what you felt in the military with the people you led). The flipside is that business/corporate pays better haha
Finally, the GRE is fine.
close
