After the military

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

<p>Hello --</p>

<p>At the moment, it is my intention to complete some form of ROTC during college and enter the military. </p>

<p>After the military (which I would intend on staying in for 10 years or longer), I would have the intention of getting an MBA.</p>

<p>Would service as a military officer add any extra weight to an MBA application?</p>

<p>Also: how far would a career suffer with the military experience pushing back industry entry dates?</p>

2

<p>If you intend to be a military officer for more than 10 years, you should get your Master’s while serving.</p>

3

<p>You have a lot of “intentions”.</p>

<p>Why would you want to stay 10 years or longer? 10 years is a pretty specific number. Most people I know either stay for their initial obligation or they stay the entire 20 be it through a combination of Active Duty and Reserves/Guard.</p>

<p>Being a commissioned officer is the “standard” for top b-schools.</p>

<p>How much a career would “suffer” with the military experience pushing back “industry” entry dates is your doing alone. What I don’t understand is how your career would suffer if you aren’t even in the “industry” at that time?</p>

<p>And what “industry” are you referring too?</p>

4

<p>if you stay in ten years you’re going to be expected to earn your master’s along the way. it’s all but required for promotion to O-4.</p>

5

<p>

That’s a blanket statement. Safe to say, it depends. Depends on branch of service, (active/reserves/guard), etc.
It’s certainly recommended (for Board purposes), but there is no regulation that requires you to earn a Master’s for a promotion to O-4.</p>

6

<p>no there is no reg that states it. go ask board members if they’re willing to promote a captain to major without one. it happens sometimes with pilots, but it’s rare. it’s just like any promotion item. there’s no written rule that says AF E-7 to E-8 requires a CCAF degree, but it does. not all rules are written.</p>

7

<p>Where in the OP’s post did you see him mention the USAF? Don’t make that assumption. The USAF is tiny compared to the other branches.</p>

8

<p>False. It is smaller than the army, the same size as the navy, 50% larger than the marines. tiny? nope.
and officer promotions are fairly well standardized across the DoD.</p>

9

<p>

Wow. Please. Enlighten me. You must have a lot more experience with this than I do in this regard.
The assumption that officer promotions are fairly well standardized across all services branches must mean the criteria must be equally standardized as well. Funny, because if that was the case, we would probably see far more inter-service transfers.
But since we don’t, and I know for a fact that officer promotions are not well-standardized across all service branches (much less within the Army - ie. Reserves v. National Guard for example), so you’re unequivocally wrong.
If you just take a look at the average age of each O grade by comparing Active Duty proponents with each other and then Reserve/Guard proponents with each other, you’ll notice that your youngest officers per grade tend to be Army officers. If the promotions were “well standardized” across all services branches, that would not be the case.</p>