Calling all US Military Fall 2010 Applicants!

I applied to Olin R3 and received my interview invite on Friday. There are actually a number of schools that combine the new GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon to create near or full tuition and expenses. MilitarytoBusiness blogger, and current HBS student, created a sheet listing schools by maximum annual benefit. I supplemented this with some of my own, less accurate, research. See the top schools below with annual benefit for 100% New GI Bill eligibility plus YR. (ALL APPROXIMATIONS, includes: book stipend, housing allowance, covered expenses, covered fees, GI Bill tuition coverage, school and VA YR Match)

TUCK - $81K
ROSS- $75k
TEPPER - $74K
OLIN - $66K
WHARTON - $65K
FUQUA - $62K
JOHNSON - $62K
KELLOGG - $55K

Though you should really decide on a school for concentrations supporting your future career plans and overall fit, its surely tough to pass up the opportunity to leave school debt free. Another benefit of all these schools listed is that they not only recognize veterans with financial support. They also value service members in the classroom and look favorably upon them in the admissions process.

As evidence, I feel I have less than stellar credentials and have applied in the March round for every school (result of IRR recall). I have received interview invites for 5 schools already, 4 of which are listed above.

BTW, if you havent read this blog, he presents a very insightful perspective on business school.

https://militarytobusiness.blogspot.com/

Yeah, he's got a great blog. I met a guy while visiting Fuqua who was only looking at schools that had the Yellow Ribbon program, great idea I thought.

I'm in at Fuqua and I'll hear from UNC tomorrow, hoping to get in there as well. Nice to know a former grunt (an enlisted one at that!) can get into a decent school. Hooah!

Good luck everyone.

Hey guys,

Just returned from an Afghanistan deployment two days ago and was accepted at Darden and LBS today. Definitely makes my post-deployment celebration even sweeter.

I also have interview invites with Haas and Stern, although I'm really favoring London at this point.

Best of luck to everyone!

Welcome home and congrats! London is a great city - I am stationed there right now! You will love it.

Just to update everyone - I got into Booth and Stern a couple days ago, so now to make a choice ... advice is more than welcome. I also got approved for early separation today so I can start school on time and I don't have to defer a year! Best week ever!!!

I would say Booth. The school has a better reputation overall, I think, and Chicago's a great city (though too cold for me). Nice choices to have!

seasons coming down to a close.

how's everyone fairing? me? not as good as I nearly had hoped.

On the Flip side, RonMexico is kicking ass and taking names. Congrats brother. How y'all doing?

The word is still out for me, but Im fairing better than expected. As stated before on this thread, I thought I was going to be in Afghanistan right now, but sent home early from my IRR Recall tour. I applied to 7 schools in about a month. All were for the final round for each school.

Im 5 for 5 on interview invites so far (waiting on 2)
2 for 2 on admits (waiting on 5) In at Owen and Olin.

In the end, I got an admit to 2 schools Im very happy with, so even if I dont get another admit, I know Im going to school this fall somewhere. That in itself is a great feeling.

So a couple of weeks back I posted some numbers found on a blog regarding the 9/11 GI Bill plus Yellow Ribbon contributions. Now that I have been admitted, Im starting to be more skeptical of those numbers. For example, it stated that a student at Tuck would receive $81K annually. Im not sure how it all breaks down, but that looks like a direct addition of funds, and I think some may overlap and create a lesser total value. Basically, Im confused.

Is there a current student out there (or admitted student who has a finalized Financial Aid summary) who is utilizing the 9/11/ GI Bill and YRP at a school where the total exceeds tuition. The term "fees" is what really confuses me. Does the GIB and YRP cover living expenses (food, gas, health care, etc) for my family and me? Can I borrow the mentioned living expenses if the GIB and YRP doesnt cover?

Also, now that Im deciding between schools, do I have to define one single school when applying for my VA Certificate of Eligibility?

My apologies for neglecting this thread, the last several weeks have been crazy busy. It's good to start seeing the admits start coming in. Lakai777, congrats on Darden and RonMexico, congrats on your whole bunch!

GrantChap, it's awesome that you got all those interviews and two admits already. The last round is almost always considered the hardest so you must have had some really strong apps. To answer a few of your questions:

- You don't have to specify a school when applying to the VA, once you matriculate the school you attend will verify your enrollment to get the benefits going.

- The blogger that you mentioned noted that his numbers are not official and just based on his own research. While they are a good reference point, it is worth noting that there is a lot of complexity into what are considered credits and fees by the school and VA. I recommend that once you know which school you are attending, contact their financial aid office and get in touch with the VA benefits POC. This person can then address your specific situation. It looks simple on the surface, but dig into the FAQs on the VA website and it can quickly get complicated.

- It may depend on the school, but my understanding is that GI Bill benefits should not impact your ability to receive other financial aid (loans, grants). However, it could possibly affect the Cost of Attendance that the school considers, still trying to sort this out.

Hey guys, I too am sorry for the relative neglect of the thread. Work has me "deployed" at the moment, so I am trying quite hard to make a few decisions and get all the documents in a row for the VA bill.

Which takes me to your question, GrantChap - the certificate of eligibility is a rather generic document that you send to the school once you enroll. They kind of "take it from there", and I would call every school's financial aid office personally to get a few specifics. Most of them except a scanned copy to get the ball rolling. As far as calculating your benefits, there is one website that is invaluable for this:

https://www.newgibill.org/calculator

Most schools will list their total costs in terms of tuition and fees on their webpages, so enter that data into this calculator, and you have an EXCELLENT estimate of what you will receive for benefits. It is incredibly generous. Please PM me if you need a few more answers.

I also must apologize for my lack of participation here. Moved down to BAMC and with that and other medical things have been busy.

Damn Ronny, Clean sweep!...

...I am almost the opposite. Rolling the dice with a rushed Wharton essay question (I guess I could not sum up Iraqi culture using "Inshallah" in only 500 words) probably cost me UPENN right off the bat and the fact I am definitely deferring probably cost me MIT LGO (they do not defer). To be honest though I really began to focus on HBS and Stanford anyway, so it didn't hurt anything other than my perfectionist pride.

As for Stanford...I eventually got an interview but was still dinged. I can never be sure how my deferral effected them, but I hate to think it was what got me (and hate to think I would therefore have a really, really good shot if I applied Round 1 next year). HBS on the other hand I was fairly certain about after the interview. And to be honest, if deferral was an issue it does not hurt them nearly as much as they have more numbers to work with. I also got into HKS, so I will very happily be matriculating into the Joint program in 2011 (you do the first year at the Kennedy school so I actually do not start at HBS until 2012 - after you all graduate!!! how crazy is that!).

I hope you have all made peace with the decisions and wish you all the in b-school! You guys have definitely been a great resource along the way and hopefully in the future many of us will work together to do great things! In fact if you are ever in the San Antonio area for the next 12 months...or if you are in Cambridge after that look me up!

Thought I'd add my round-up to the bunch. I was dinged at Stanford, waitlisted at MIT, and accepted at Yale (the only place I interviewed). Then, about two weeks after the admit notice, Yale offered a scholarship for $50K! I'm excited to get things started in the fall, and am looking forward to living in the states again. Best of luck to everyone else (looks like there are some tough decisions to be made).

For any future applicants going through these old posts: study long and hard for the GMAT, start earlier than you think you need to on the essays, and put *a lot* of thought into who you want to write your recommendations.

let me try to emphasize this without sounding bitter. as some on this forum may know, i believe the flawed rec was the silver bullet that killed my aspirations for the uber elite schools.
I compel all those who read this next year (or this year as it were), to be EXTREMELY choosey when deciding who to have write your recs. my advice: respectfully state that you expect them to fully work with you in writing the rec. that you wish to swrite it together and so that it fits the narrative you are compiling in your essays. Each of us all have compelling stories to share, with oodles more leadership experience than the average applicant. the last thing you want is one of your civvy superiors reminiscing about an incident that showed how "ignorant" you were but did a "good job" recovering. (true story)

if they are not willing to be a partner in the construction of your recommendations, then they probably aren't the right person to be writing them. You are shooting for your dreams and you need to have the right people who will help you get there. So there is nothing wrong with finding the exact person who will give you the best chance.

So yesterday I received my notification from Cornell that I got in. I immediately contacted the financial aid office to inquire about the GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon Program. I was told that the Yellow Ribbon program would be unavailable because all scholarship money is gone. It works out that the school covers their portion of the Yellow Ribbon match with scholarships. Now, the school has stated on the VA website that they offer 68 total Yellow Ribbon matches at a specified amount. If they haven't met that max amount are they required to come up with the funds.

I was told that I likely wouldnt get the school match portion, and hence would not get the VA match of that either. When I asked about reconsideration for year 2, i was told they dont reconsider for year 2 unless you received scholarships in year 1. So in the end it looks like I could be missing out on a total of about $30K for the 2 years.

Has anyone else encountered such a situation. Seems like if the school says they will commit to 68 people, that they should have some contract with the VA to provide that.

FYI, MIT Sloan will have the Yellow Ribbon next year. Total tuition benefit inclusive of regular 9-11 GI Bill at 100%: at least $22,000/year.

Anyone else waiting on R3 decisions? RonMexico, do you know any other US mil guys going to HBS next year?

So your question wasnt directed at me but...2 guys I did ROTC with will be at Harvard in the fall.