Calling all US Military Fall 2014 Applicants!

I wouldn't worry about the officer vs. enlisted part...yeah, you'll see more former officers than former enlisted at business school, but that discrepancy has much more to do with the number who apply rather than any bias against enlisted personnel.

As for the "would I be competitive" question--your GPA is a little lower than the median for top 10 schools, but a low-ish GPA in engineering is still better than a low-ish GPA in comparative literature. You can also offset a lower GPA with a good GMAT, work experiences, and career goals.

I'm not too familiar with how GRE translates to GMAT but your quant score is very impressive, especially for someone coming from the military. I also don't think every MBA program accepts the GRE--some do, some don't, while everyone accepts the GMAT. I would recommend addressing the verbal issue to get it up to ~80% and working on GMAT prep for a few months, then applying to 4-5 schools in R2 in early January.

This blog post covers some of the factors to consider when picking target schools: https://blog.militarytobusiness.com/2013 ... itary.html Short answer is that there's nothing wrong with applying to a few top 5 schools as dream schools, but you want to make sure you've got your bases covered by also applying to a few in the top 15 or top 25 range. Duke and ND would fit the bill at not-quite-top-10 schools which are still solid programs.