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BigRedEnvEng
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 21 Apr 2011, 21:33
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calliuk6
First off, CONGRATULATIONS to all my fellow brothers and sisters in arms who are getting into these top tier schools! It is amazing to see how well the military is represented throughout the nation's elite business schools and should be fun to see which former military officers or enlisted members skyrocket to the top of major corporations. It has been interesting to watch some of my mentors from the Air Force Academy who had strong MBAs transition from the military when the AF decided to force shape officers and see the routes they have taken post military.

For someone who is transitioning in 2013, what advice would you give for getting into the school of your choice? What things do you wish you had known at the beginning of the application process that you know now? What can be done two years out to help ease the process? There is obviously a lot of work that goes into a successful business school application but maybe there are a few particular lessons learned that would be beneficial to those who are coming after you.

Best of luck to all of you and I hope to meet a few of you on campus tours when I link up with the Veteran's Clubs.

Also, please keep us informed of the GI Bill benefits and how much they are actually kicking in to your tuition expenses.
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I agree with everything emont said. Some additional thoughts:

- When researching careers, consider informational interviews. Sometimes you think you know exactly what you want to do or you think you know exactly what people in a certain industry do on a day-to-day basis, but it's often not so clear from the outside. Now's a great time to make some contacts at some companies or in some industries in which you're interested.

- Clean up your resume and keep it up to date. This way, come application time, all you have to do is perhaps add information from your last OER.

- If you haven't already, start saving. Think about the tuitions and loan amounts you're willing to take and come up with a reasonable amount you'd like to have saved up before school starts. Then put aside some money each month into your savings account.

- I do want to reiterate what emont said about the GMAT. If you're certain that you're going to apply in 2013, take the GMAT soon (or at least before you even need to start considering applications). The earlier you can get it out of the way, the happier you'll be. Oh, and like emont said, Manhattan GMAT books with the OG is the way to go (although if you're pretty unfamiliar with the GMAT, I do also recommend the Kaplan guides - they provide a good overview).
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 22 Apr 2011, 17:42
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calluk6 - let me know if you check out wharton, ill be up there as a first year and id love to help you out in any way possible
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 26 Apr 2011, 02:01
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calliuk6
First off, CONGRATULATIONS to all my fellow brothers and sisters in arms who are getting into these top tier schools! It is amazing to see how well the military is represented throughout the nation's elite business schools and should be fun to see which former military officers or enlisted members skyrocket to the top of major corporations. It has been interesting to watch some of my mentors from the Air Force Academy who had strong MBAs transition from the military when the AF decided to force shape officers and see the routes they have taken post military.

For someone who is transitioning in 2013, what advice would you give for getting into the school of your choice? What things do you wish you had known at the beginning of the application process that you know now? What can be done two years out to help ease the process? There is obviously a lot of work that goes into a successful business school application but maybe there are a few particular lessons learned that would be beneficial to those who are coming after you.

Best of luck to all of you and I hope to meet a few of you on campus tours when I link up with the Veteran's Clubs.

Also, please keep us informed of the GI Bill benefits and how much they are actually kicking in to your tuition expenses.

So you'll be looking to start school in Fall 2013? In that case you've got plenty of time to get all your stuff in one bag. Here are a few of the things I would do:

-It looks like you've already made a tentative school wishlist, so try to visit a few of them during leave periods if at all possible. If not, make email contact with their vets clubs (or any other career/interest groups) and get some insider information from them--if you aren't able to visit prior to applying, you can still demonstrate knowledge of the school and its culture in your essays and interviews by talking about the things you've learned from students.
-Make sure your possible schools match up with your career goals and where you want to live post-MBA--don't just pick based on location or ranking or brand or whatever. Some "lower-ranked" schools are better-suited in particular fields or locations than their higher-ranked counterparts. On that note, do as much research into your anticipated career path as possible--that knowledge will help you write more convincing essays.
-Check out the applications for your possible schools. Most keep their essays fairly consistent from one year to the next so it wouldn't hurt to start keeping a notebook or Word document where you can scribble ideas for essays as they pop into your head...particularly for something like Stanford Essay #1. You don't want to try to write that one from scratch a month before the application deadline.
-Depending on what your optempo is like, now may be as good a time as any to prep for the GMAT. Scores are good for 5 years, so if you can get a solid score now that'll save you a lot of headaches once you get into application season. Or if you're not going to take it yet, start studying by bits and pieces now rather than saving all your studying for later on...you can find a few options with "GMAT question of the day" type offerings that wouldn't be a bad idea.
-As for books, Montauk's "How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs" was a pretty good intro and overview for me, aside from the sample essays which were mostly either out of date or awful or both. For GMAT prep I liked the MGMAT 8-book series along with the OG.
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Emont's advice about writing down essay ideas as you go is excellent. I took my iphone with me on deployment and whenever I had some down time and was mulling over 'stories that highlight my experience/leadership/maturity' I would write a quick line or two. By the end of the deployment I had almost 3 pages of essay ideas. You probably have several years in the military at this point and more stories than you realize. Even that stupid incident about how you had your ass handed to you by some DI at boot camp or how you screwed up something as the new guy in the unit can be great material for your essays, considering that almost all the top schools will ask you something about a shortcoming, failure or just a time you were not successful at overcoming something. While it might not sound exceptional to some of your military peers, it is classic military leadership development to civilian adcom.

I second his recommendation on MGMAT. Went from 600 practice test to 710 official in about 5 months. doing lots of TIMED, computer-adaptive practice tests is the key, not just studying notecards. I ended up taking the test 3 times over those 5 months, I'm sure I would have improved even more had I been able to space the tests out a little more.

Finally, absolutely agree regarding school visits and networking. Your first stop should be to look up each school's veteran clubs online and contact their officers. Schedule a school visit and/or find out if they are doing any prospective military student days.

The earlier you get to go visit the school and get to know the students and figure out which ones have goals most similar to yours the better. Looking back on my entire bschool application process, the one school I ended up getting into was the one I had visited a year earlier, had met with the program directors, knew several of the professors and students by name, and was actually able to weave all those elements into my essays so that it showed that I had done my homework well before applying. Unless you are out of CONUS, there's not really a good reason why you wouldn't be able to visit at least 1 or 2 of your dream schools and start incorporating the experiences you'll have at those school visits into your applications.

Me and wp06 will be at Wharton, and I am doing the Lauder joint MA/MBA program if you or any peers you know have advanced foreign language skills and interested in working in that language for business. FYI I was the only military candidate who was accepted (or probably even applied) to the joint program this past year out of 70 total slots, so there is definitely room for more veterans.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 27 Apr 2011, 01:41
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Damn, we have to wait until July for the Military Fall 2012 Applicants forum!?!?

Anyway, great info on here - kbay, I was at Schofield from 2005-2009 (not that it matters). This may have been answered elsewhere, but did you have to take the GRE separately in order to apply for the Lauder program?
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 27 Apr 2011, 09:49
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One more thing I left out of my previous post--start to figure out who will write your recommendation letters. See what your intended schools require or allow--some ask for 2 rec letters, some ask for 3, some require a current boss, some ask for a peer/colleague, etc.

You don't necessarily need to ask them now if they'll do a recommendation for you (particularly if it's a current boss who doesn't know you're planning to EAS) but having some names in mind now wouldn't hurt. Later on I can give you some advice as to how to prep your recommenders to write effective letters that fit in with the overall theme of the rest of your application.

In terms of who writes your recommendations, the adcom statements and admissions books guides aren't lying--adcoms don't care about rank/title as much as they do content of the letter. In order words don't think they'll be amazed that you got a general to write a recommendation unless that guy is really capable of writing specific stories about how awesome you are. Most adcom are relatively clueless about anything military-related so ranks and titles don't mean a whole lot to them.

In my case, although I've worked directly under a colonel and a major general for about 14 months now, I had two of my former COs (one a Maj, one a LtCol) write recommendations for all 5 of my applications because I felt they would be able to write more explicitly about my leadership performance in stressful and demanding situations. For the third recommendation required for my Stanford and HBS applications, I had a fellow Capt write that one because we had worked side by side in pretty demanding billets for almost two years.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 08 May 2011, 15:41
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Ok, here is my basic info. I have included a pretty detailed MBA analysis that takes into account my Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits. Hopefully other vets can criticize its considerations or find it useful. Thanks in advance!


1) Basic demographic info: 27, male, US

2) Educational Background: Finance Major, 3.3 overall/3.7 university GPA (have 4 F's that should of been withdrawls while I was in the Marines due to deployment ending my class participation, I cannot get the original orders to correct them), 700 GMAT

3) Work experience: Undergrads Spring 2012, Prior experience culinary school, 2 years chef/restaurant management, 4 years as an Enlisted Marine (Supply and Logistics), Fixed Income Analyst Internship at top rank funds, IRS Revenue Agent Co-op

4) Extracurriculars: Business Honors Program. President (FOR NEXT YEAR) Financial Management Assc, 2/2 first place finishes for our schools stock competitions.

5) Short/Long term goals: I want to move into trading or buy side analyst for asset management post MBA. Consulting/consulting analyst is a secondary consideration.

6) Schools: Which schools have you considered already? Any on your initial short list? Columbia, Booth, Haas, Stern, Cornell, Anderson.... please see spreadsheet
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MBAS AND MSFs.xlsx [499.1 KiB]
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 08 May 2011, 15:58
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That's some pretty extensive analysis, man. I think a lot of us will get quite a bit out of it. If you're already working in the financial sector then you probably have a better idea than most of us what you need to do. I would think that CBS and Stern would be good alternatives. There's a former Marine at Stern (1st year) going to a trading internship this summer. You've got a pretty interesting background and if you've been out of the military for a while I'm not sure how much ADCOMs consider your military experience. They might just as well throw you in the "Finance" applicant bucket. When are you looking to matriculate?
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 08 May 2011, 16:13
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Gryphon
That's some pretty extensive analysis, man. I think a lot of us will get quite a bit out of it. If you're already working in the financial sector then you probably have a better idea than most of us what you need to do. I would think that CBS and Stern would be good alternatives. There's a former Marine at Stern (1st year) going to a trading internship this summer. You've got a pretty interesting background and if you've been out of the military for a while I'm not sure how much ADCOMs consider your military experience. They might just as well throw you in the "Finance" applicant bucket. When are you looking to matriculate?
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Apps not in, waiting for the Columbia ED in Oct, I am prior enlisted finishing my finance undergrads in spring 2012. My finance experience is only 1 internship/trading competitions.

So I am posting in the wrong thread, I know!

Just figured I would toss up my analysis for anyone who cares. There is a place to put in your gmat/gpa that is meant to show your reach schools/easy admits quant based by index score % +/- comparing their average to yours. Also it highlights upcoming round deadlines as they near with different formatting from 2 months away to due that week. Also accounts for cashflows, risk of non yellow ribbon participation, etc. Sure there are some weaknesses, but I think it is decent, and hopefully more people can find use of it than just I.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 12 May 2011, 08:44
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Good new post from the Military to Business guy at HBS, though I think it probably applies to pretty much any MBA program:
https://militarytobusiness.blogspot.com/ ... ht-me.html
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 12 May 2011, 09:47
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Pretty interesting. Kind of big picture stuff. Below is what I copied and pasted from Rhyme's "In retrospect..." thread. More tactical level information for those going to school this upcoming year. He went to Booth.


In retrospect...

I present for no other reason than I feel like it, the top 10 mistakes I wish I hadn't made, or things I learned or whatever I can come up with that happens to end up with 10 items ... in no particular order:

#1: Grades
----------
I may have graduated with a ridiculously high GPA, but in retrospect it had no bearing on anything (not least of which my job hunt due to the fact that we have GND anyway). Now two years out, it seems clear no one would care if I had a 3.9 GPA or a 2.9 GPA. And a 2.9 would have been a LOT easier to get. I do dream of one day teaching and perhaps that 3.9 will be more meaningful then, but for now, its about as interesting as paint drying.

#2: Hanging out more
--------------------
Perhaps relating to #1, I wish I had spent more time hanging out and less time worrying. Worrying about grades, jobs, interviews, cover letters, resumes, etc. That's of course easy to say on the other side of the moat, but it seems clear to me now that just about everyone gets something pretty decent coming out of an MBA program. To be fair, there is correlation between effort and outcome but seems to be a lot weaker than I had originally thought.
The next time someone says "lets go drink" and you are about to say no, just say yes. Whatever you were going to do isn't actually important.

#3: Don't get distracted
------------------------
It's so easy to get distracted by other job paths. Everyone thinks they know what the best jobs are. IM? Make $300K a year and work 40 hours a week! Banking? Become a millionaire? Consulting? Two years and you can be SVP at Google! Marketing? You'll never make money! Listen to enough of it and you can only come to the conclusion that every industry and every job sucks. Come in knowing what you want, pursue it and leave with it. I can't tell you how many people (myself included) got sucked into interviews we had no business going to.

#4: Rank only sorta matters
---------------------------
In my case it didn't factor: Chicago was the obvious choice for a number of personal reasons outside of its rank, but I've seen a lot of people pick school X or Y based on rank (and turn down full ride offers at other top schools), and I've come to the conclusion it really really means so little now. If the correlation between effort and job outcome is weak, the correlation between rank and job outcome seems even more pathetic. There's a limit to this of course - but by and large, its surprising (and perhaps a little sad even) how incredibly homogenous - if not outright identical - the programs at the top are. The guy sitting to your left? Harvard. The guy to your right? Sloan. The girl in the other interview room? Ross. Rank will buy you an interview, it won't buy you a job. And once you have the job, it wont buy you anything.

#5: Take good professors not good classes
------------------------------------------
Personal experience here but a good professor a good class makes. Simple.

#6: People suck, figure out who doesn't
--------------------------------------
Not everyone in grad school is smart. A lot of people are downright stupid. Others are lazy. Some are just tricky little pricks who try to pull fast ones by not doing any work. Figuring out who those people are and keeping them off your study group is a worthwhile endeavor. Similarly, make a name for yourself as someone who can "knock it out the park" and you'll have your pick of the litter. It's easier to kick butt with 4 other people who kick butt than with 4 deadweights.

#7: Spend more time earlier on figuring out what your goals are
-------------------------------------------------------------
Related to #3. You don't get much time (read: any) to figure out what you really want to get out of your MBA once you land. It's UHF's drink from the firehose skit all day long for 2 years. If something sounds interesting you have precious little time to decide if its something worth pursuing. This is true about jobs, career paths, student groups, classes, etc. Everything happens on lightning speed. I sometimes wonder if I dismissed a career path that would have been a good choice. I read a book called "More than Money" by mark Albion in my 2nd year and I should have read it my first. If you haven't read it, get it.

#8: Do what you like and the money will follow
---------------------------------------------
It's surprising how many of my friends pursued jobs that had bigger paychecks and ended up hating them with a vengeance. I was shocked at the number of people I knew trying to leave their jobs one year post MBA. Perhaps I shouldn't have been - a down economy certainly didn't help everyone land a dream gig, but it still surprised. And I'm not just talking about banking - really anything applies here.

Ok so thats 8. You make up the other two.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 12 May 2011, 10:06
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On another level, for those that have already been through the process, what were your thoughts on Tuck?

Perhaps most disconcerting is Dartmouth's lack of a law school. Law schools generally have high concentrations of women :P Moreover, many of these women have liberal arts backgrounds and need a strong male leadership presence in their lives. In a sort of totally logical yet partially convoluted way, Dartmouth is indirectly oppressing women by not creating a law school which would be comprised of 50% or more women. In not having that law school the young women that would have attended the law school are now missing out on an opportunity to mingle with strong Tuck males. These poor girls will now be forced to navigate life's ups and downs without a reassuring former military male in their life. Do you think maybe Dartmouth wants to get on this and slap together a law program here in the next 3-15 months? 8-)

Aside from this egregious oversight/oppression, there isn't much not to like about Dartmouth and Tuck.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 12 May 2011, 10:59
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Haha, sorry to hear that Gryphon.

Then again, there's always misguided undergrads looking for a father figure...

Posted from my mobile device
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 12 May 2011, 20:10
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ewwwww on the father figure. 18 year old frosh being hit on by 30 year old men. sickening.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 12 May 2011, 21:54
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I was being less than serious, in case it wasn't obvious.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 13 May 2011, 03:33
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emont
I was being less than serious, in case it wasn't obvious.
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Lol. I got the joke!! Sometimes I miss the joke, but I got this one.

I have heard numerous stories from some guys that have pursued their MBAs and they refer to it as "hitting for cycle" with respect to undergrads. I was amused. By and large they were the bankers who were only two years removed from college themselves.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 13 May 2011, 23:03
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I was also being very less than serious, if it was not obvious by the comment such as "ewwwwwwwwwwww". Emphasis on the W's.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 21 May 2011, 14:24
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Been kind of silent on this chat for awhile, I had a rocky start to applications but eventually was accepted to UT Austin, UMass-Amherst's dual MBA/MPP, and waitlisted to Dartmouth and NYU. Holding out for Dartmouth!
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 21 May 2011, 14:37
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Been kind of silent on this chat for awhile, I had a rocky start to applications but eventually was accepted to UT Austin, UMass-Amherst's dual MBA/MPP, and waitlisted to Dartmouth and NYU. Holding out for Dartmouth!
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What were your thoughts on MIT Sloan? Why did you apply there? I think yourself and WP06 were the only vets on the forum to take a stab at MIT.

It looks kind of different even among the top schools. There isn't as much said about it relative to the other top ones (i.e. H/S/W/Booth/K). They only have two rounds don't they? I hear Rod Garcia, director of admissions, does all the interviews and he grills people pretty hard. I respect that they don't ask people what they want to do post-MBA because they know most of its BS anyway. Or at least they don't ask in the essays. I may be wrong though.

Sloan intrigues me for next year, but I'm not sure what to make of it.
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 21 May 2011, 14:49
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Gryphon, I applied because my husband was accepted to their Nuclear Engineering and Security Studies dual degree program (yes...genius...but opposites attract or so they say :) I visited the weekend I was rejected (long story...they really strung me along) with him as apart of his admit weekend and honestly, I love the area....but the atmosphere at MIT is VERY VERY 'techy'. It's not a campus that centers around community or fitness. People go to MIT because they are geniuses. Quite literally we asked his escort/MIT rep that took care of us, "where's the gym?". He replied, "hahahaha people don't work out at MIT." Now, the plus side is...once we found it, it was empty...always. I know that sounds superficial and not necessarily what you asked re: the program. But, experience, community, and fitness are really important to me. I assume they are important to many military personnel. Now, I do have a mil friend that got out and was accepted to MIT and HBS. He's a genius like my husband too...I could definitely link you two up if you'd like. It was a hard choice for him but at the end of the day it came down to two things 1) program - he wants to be in operations and MIT blows HBS out of the water in their operations program 2) numbers...HBS is so huge and, while so is Sloan, it's a smaller and a bit more collaborative program. I hope this helped. I know WP06 had his heart set on MIT so he may know more than me. As for me, my heart is at MIT...that's the only thing that brought me there.
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Gryphon
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Posts: 110
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Calling all US Military Fall 2011 Applicants! 21 May 2011, 15:35
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Gryphon, I applied because my husband was accepted to their Nuclear Engineering and Security Studies dual degree program (yes...genius...but opposites attract or so they say :) I visited the weekend I was rejected (long story...they really strung me along) with him as apart of his admit weekend and honestly, I love the area....but the atmosphere at MIT is VERY VERY 'techy'. It's not a campus that centers around community or fitness. People go to MIT because they are geniuses. Quite literally we asked his escort/MIT rep that took care of us, "where's the gym?". He replied, "hahahaha people don't work out at MIT." Now, the plus side is...once we found it, it was empty...always. I know that sounds superficial and not necessarily what you asked re: the program. But, experience, community, and fitness are really important to me. I assume they are important to many military personnel. Now, I do have a mil friend that got out and was accepted to MIT and HBS. He's a genius like my husband too...I could definitely link you two up if you'd like. It was a hard choice for him but at the end of the day it came down to two things 1) program - he wants to be in operations and MIT blows HBS out of the water in their operations program 2) numbers...HBS is so huge and, while so is Sloan, it's a smaller and a bit more collaborative program. I hope this helped. I know WP06 had his heart set on MIT so he may know more than me. As for me, my heart is at MIT...that's the only thing that brought me there.
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Geez, that sucks. I'd love to hear the long story about how you felt strung along. Was it more because your husband was there or because they thought you were a competitive candidate that they strung you out?

I had a nuclear engineering instructor that went to MIT and he said that he was "definitely the dumbest one there, but people think I'm a genius now." He was a Major when I took his class.

MIT seems like it gets less attention because although it's probably the sixth best school in the country, it's not even the best in its town. I guess it all depends on what you want to study though.

Have you been in touch with Bill Brown at Tuck? What is he saying?
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