Calling all US Military Fall 2013 Applicants!

I don't think it would hurt to contact students now.

Personally, I've always been interested in how active the vets club of each school is, how vets do in the recruiting process, how well vets integrate with the rest of the campus.

Also, some veterans clubs (like HBS for example) are very open to prospective military students e-mailing them for admissions advice.

Contact away--I've been fielding questions from prospective students pretty much nonstop since I got to campus in August. If you're planning on applying this fall you'll want to get started with your stuff now. Waiting til summer internships are over will put you behind the power curve in terms of visiting schools and working on essays and everything else that goes along with applications.

If a particular school's vets club isn't responsive or willing to help you out I would take that to be a pretty big red flag about their culture and how they operate. Helping vets learn about the school (and be competitive for admssion) is one of the main things vets clubs are supposed to do, particularly the admissions reps within the clubs. I've seriously lost count of how many applicants I've talked to or brought to class this year, but it hasn't been a hassle at all. Just check out their websites and fire off a few emails to the contacts listed on there.

What do you all think about Harvard's essay questions for this year?

Tell us about something you did well. (400 words)
Tell us about something you wish you had done better. (400 words)

Might make it a little more difficult for nontraditional applicants to tell their story to adcoms... thoughts?

Any military thinking of applying to LBS this fall?

It'll be hard for traditional applicants to tell their story too...maybe even harder, since the experiences of Consultant X from McKinsey are probably almost identical to Consultant Y from Bain. They'll have a hard time differentiating themselves without those extra essays.

Keep in mind military isn't the only source of nontraditional applicants...just in my section alone I had teachers, nonprofit/NGO workers, software engineers, lawyers, and a cheese salesman, among others.

What this change will do is increase the importance of your resume and recommendations as a way of describing your performance and goals relative to your peers. And who knows, maybe they'll decide to start interviews earlier and interview more applicants since adcom won't be spending as much time reading essays. Maybe this is a method of putting more weight on the interview.

I believe it is since another essay is a follow up interview essay due within 24 hours of the interview.

I'm throwing my hat in also, what I've noticed is the lack of enlisted members who are both current students and applying.

5.5 years active, 7 months reserve, USAF. 3.37 from top public. Gmat in August, east coast visits in September. Targeting HBS, CBS, Tuck, and Kellog for R1

2 Questions for current students/alums: 1. Does anyone have any resume books I can reference my resume to? I'm having trouble translating military jargon to civilian terms, and to make them sound interesting and important 2. For the HBS app on the employment section, am I listing the military branch as the one organization and list titles/positions I've held or use the multiple slots to list all of the different positions?

I bought the resume book from www.militarytobusiness.com. It has actual resumes from military guys that transitioned to business.

I'm starting to feel sick because of the lack of enlisted folks at top programs. Starting to realize all the favoritism for veterans is geared towards the commissioned side

I would disagree with you that there is favoritism for the commissioned side. I think the military does a disservice to enlisted troops by encouraging them to attend schools like Community College of the Air Force or Toro University online to get their degree while in. You're going to have a tough sell getting into a Top 20 MBA program with a check-the-box undergraduate degree.

That being said, if you didn't get a crappy online degree and you did some good things while on active duty I don't see any reason why an enlisted vet can't get into a top school. Just make sure you tell a convincing story. Any NCO is going to have far more leadership experience and interesting things to talk about than a banking analyst who just pounds away on Excel all day long.

Disagree with you there. I know of at least 3 in my class, and I helped one enlisted Marine with his HBS application who ended up with close to a full ride to NYU Stern.

I think the reason that there aren't more is because more aren't applying. Either they're not informed about what an MBA is and how to get yourself into a good program, or it's a matter of what mappleby said...too many hurt their chances by picking up an online degree just to check a box rather than doing their four years, getting out, and going to a good school for undergrad. Of the three former enlisted guys I know here, one did his undergrad at Dartmouth and the other did an engineering program at Georgia Tech, so they obviously proved they could handle tough coursework. Based on where you told me you went to undergrad, I think you'll be fine there.

I highly doubt there's an institutional bias against enlisted...hell, I meet plenty of people who don't know what it means to be an officer vs. enlisted. The only reason there would appear to be favoritism towards officers is because officers make up a majority of the vets applying to MBA programs, so they're the primary audience. And most of the former officers I meet here tend to be grads of a service academy or a top public school, so they've already passed that hurdle in the eyes of adcom. I don't think it's much different than the "age bias" that appears to be present at a lot of top programs. The truth is that a lot of 30+ year old people self-select themselves out of applying, so not a lot get in. But I still know of plenty of 30+ classmates here, and we've got one who's in his late 50s or early 60s....no joke.

I think my comments were based on this self reflecting period, and scrambling to find others like me who've been through the process. Maybe you guys are right and many of the enlisted folks aren't aware of what an online degree will get them or what an MBA can do for them, and it's making me feel in adequate because of the lack of enlisted folks I've encountered. When I went to visit Booth, there was a submarine officer and an army physician, and I honestly felt out of place and out of my league. I'm hoping you guys are right and it's just my pessimism and inferiority complex overwhelming me. Thanks fellas

I definitely understand what you're going through because I had to apply with 4 years of USMC enlisted work experience, nothing else. I felt like the depth of my work experience couldn't compare to that of my competition. Frankly speaking, what looks more impressive on the books, a commander with 200 direct reports or an NCO with 5 direct reports?

However, what you'll soon realize as you start engaging your applications and interviews is that the general public doesn't know much about the military, so quite honestly it doesn't matter. Although it's true that the majority of the veteran pool will be commissioned officers, there are other prior enlisted service members here and there. Just off the top of my head, there's one at Kellogg, one at Wharton, and two others at CBS. None of them feel disadvantaged when recruiting for jobs, so you shouldn't feel bad either.

Start reaching out to the vet clubs early. Most clubs will match you with a similar background veteran.

Don't just compare yourself to other military but think about the other applicants too. Look at what you've accomplished as an NCO, even if you only have 5 direct reports, and then think about what the average engineer at Boeing has done for his 4 years out of college or somebody in a finance rotation at a F500 company. Most applicants have to find extra-curriculars to show leadership positions. Military applicants their entire job has been about leadership. Don't sell yourself short.

Slinging over my post from last year's thread:

I just started the Johnson AMBA (accel. MBA, requires a prior or concurrent grad degree) in May, will be done next May. If any of you have another grad degree or are interested in a concurrent grad degree along with the MBA, feel free to PM me with any questions. I was an enlisted ARNG and worked as a software engineer before bschool.

One Johnson vets club guy I talked to is off this summer to a PE internship. Depending on your targets, I get the feeling recruiting is kind of like the bschool app all over again, with lots of prep to do and possibly tests to study for.

Can anyone comment on the yellow ribbon? For example, I saw that HBS for the class of 2014 accepted 49 prior military. Their overall limit is 60, so I'm guessing there's more than 11 vets in the 2nd year class. Even if we subtract people who don't have the post 9-11 GI bill and the international military, I would venture to guess that there are more than 60+ people. Do some just get hosed, or won't receive any benefits until their 2nd year?

A large majority of us aren't Yellow Ribbon-eligible because we were commissioned through a service academy or ROTC. The initial service commitment doesn't count towards the 3 years of service required for YR eligibility, so an academy grad would have to do 8 active duty years and an ROTC grad would have to do 7 active duty years to be eligible.

Thanks for clarifying. I was not aware at all of service requirement not counting. I always thought any service post 9/11 contributed. You are a tremendous help once again.