Naval Officer, Liberal Arts BA. Where will I get in?

Question

Naval Officer. 4.5 years of military service. Will get out of the Navy as a Lieutenant. 
Liberal Arts BA. Attended one of the following: Middlebury/Bowdoin/Pomona. Graduated with a 2.9 in international relations. Played College Football. 
Retook Calculus (Received an A) at a respected University during the summer.
Scoring around 700 on my practice tests.
What schools should I aim for?

Thanks in advance!

PaulBodine · Answer

gluckman,
Thanks for your service. Focus on business schools that are truly military friendly, i.e., not only well disposed toward veterans (almost all business schools are) but willing to cut you some financial slack as well. (See militarymba.com's 3 school groups.) With a 700 (hopefully higher to offset your GPA) you should have a solid to good chance of admission to one or more of the following: Group I schools---Michigan, CMU Tepper, Washington (Olin); *all* the Group III schools. Whether you would have a chance at the M7 and top 10 schools will depend on how high you can ace your GMAT, the specific reasons and offsets for your GPA (e.g., was there an upward trend?), and the quality of your resume/service. Please send me your resume and I'll give you more focused feedback: [email protected].
--Paul Bodine, Great Applications for Business School, www.admitify.com/outcomes

gluckman

Naval Officer. 4.5 years of military service. Will get out of the Navy as a Lieutenant.
Liberal Arts BA. Attended one of the following: Middlebury/Bowdoin/Pomona. Graduated with a 2.9 in international relations. Played College Football.
Retook Calculus (Received an A) at a respected University during the summer.
Scoring around 700 on my practice tests.
What schools should I aim for?

Thanks in advance!

VeritasPrepDozie · Answer

Thanks for sharing your profile. You have some nice intangibles in your background such as your military and athletic experience. Your main red flag obviously is your GPA, you have taken some measures to counteract this but your GMAT can probably have the most impact here. If it holds at 700 I would say aim for schools around the 20 mark and scale up if your performance improves

PersonalMBACoach · Answer

Thank you for your detailed post. I would love to find out more information such as demographics and extra-curriculars. That said, your military experience will definitely help you at a lot of good schools. If you can get 710+ I would focus on 10-15 ranked schools, otherwise 15-20. Ross could be a great option for you as well as Anderson. Lastly, do you have any mitigating circumstances around your GPA? (Such as much lower performance in one semester / year. This would help you if so. Feel free to contact me for a more detailed evaluation. Scott@personalmbacoach.com Good luck! Best, Scott

CriticalSquare · Answer

Hi there,

Thank you for your service. To give you a meaningful set of school recommendations, we'll need some details about what you want to do post MBA - this helps us narrow down fit. Given your GPA, any boost in your GMAT will help, so while 700 is a great milestone, fight for every extra point you can! Obviously forums aren't the best place to discuss details about your history, so if you'd like to chat live about which schools make sense for you and how we could help you craft a compelling story, sign up for a free consultation below. We are a military friendly firm - all active duty military and veterans get a discount on our services -  check them out here ! Best of luck!

VantagePointMBA · Answer

Hi there - thank you for your service! If you can raise your GMAT, the GPA is a bit easier to mitigate. I'm familiar with the undergraduate schools you noted (my husband - also an MBA grad - went to one of them), and I'm thinking you may have some differentiating undergraduate factors that could be relevant (depending on which school it was). It'll be important to explain why your GPA is what it is (mitigating factors) OR do something else to show that you can handle the coursework and the quant - there are multiple options and you have plenty of time to do this. Your college athletics paired with military service is a huge plus for leadership abilities. I would recommend you throw a reach in, but focus mostly on the 10-20 schools depending on where your GMAT shakes-out. It's hard to give you strong recommendations with just this information given how important individual stories are to the applications, but this is my knee-jerk reaction knowing only what you provided. We offer a discount for anyone who has served in the U.S. military and also have an advisor on staff (former Navy) who went to a top 10 business school and can speak to some of the specifics around how you should approach the application process. You can contact us via our website: Vantage Point MBA Admissions Consulting if you're interested in discussing further.

Best of luck!

- Meredith

Best of luck!

- Meredith

akca · Answer

Emory Goizueta is extremely welcoming to military candidates, as well as Georgetown McDonough and those schools are also potentially in your range if you can snag a 700+.

Naval Officer, Liberal Arts BA. Where will I get in?

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards