<p>Work experience: four years in Army intelligence, including 18 month deployment to Iraq (Baghdad).</p>
<p>What are her chances at a top-tier MBA program? Are they good enough that she should avoid online MBA programs during her Army stint?</p>
<p>I know Army experience gets mentioned on here frequently as excellent work experience, but she's under the impression that that's mostly for being a commissioned officer and I wasn't sure what to tell her. She's currently a specialist -- she tells me that means she's non-commissioned.</p>
<p>Did she join the Army after graduating from Duke? How much of her work experience is post-bachelor's?
My initial reaction is that she should DEFINITELY look beyond online MBA programs. While most of the military at top b-schools are former commissioned officers, as long as she can cite leadership experiences (albeit at a different level), etc. she can have a shot. Her minority status (female and Hispanic) and great undergrad stats should help significantly; hell, if she's got good enough stories, she may even be able to spin her enlisted stories to differentiate herself even more.</p>
<p>She definitely should not consider online programs. Obviously we don't know all her stats, but more than likely she will be a good candidate for a very good program, if not a top program.</p>
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Army stint was after Duke; all work experience is post-bachelor's full-time; i.e. no ROTC.
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Interesting. Any reason why she chose the enlisted route instead of going commissioned? I ask because the admissions committees will likely be asking the same thing....
Either way, she's definitely in for top 20-ish programs; depending on how she spins the story of going enlisted vice officer (assuming her GMAT is solid), she could be competitive for top 5-10 as well. And FWIW, my former colleagues and classmates from the military at schools like HBS, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, and Chicago had, for the most part, equally impressive stats out of similarly well-regarded undergrad institutions -- the only difference is that they all came from the commissioned ranks.
As an aside, not all military experiences are equal. It is certainly feasible for a Marine Sgt to have more profound leadership experiences than, say, an Air Force Lieutenant or Captain (not intentionally ribbing any services here ;) ). The top schools usually use current students w/ military backgrounds as readers to make sense of the essays...</p>
<p>Oops, didn't see the non-commissioned part. That should definitely hurt her chances (no clue how much) but with good GMAT, good essays and her educational background she can still get into a good school (not sure how good).</p>
<p>I still strongly recommend against any online programs.</p>
<p>BTW, I'm not sure of many reasons why someone wouldn't commission if given the opportunity. If she has a good reason, she could spin that in her favor. For instance, I have a friend that attended military school in HS, then attended Emory for college. She definitely had opportunities to become commissioned but decided to enlist instead because there was a very specific job as a photo-journalist that she wanted which required her to be under a certain rank.</p>
<p>She tried to explain it to me, but I simply didn't know enough about military life to really understand. She talked about wanting the full military experience, partly.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the thoughts; more always welcome. (In particular, when she gets out, where should I be telling her to apply?)</p>
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She talked about wanting the full military experience, partly.
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Yikes. That implication about commissioned officers not experiencing the military to the fullest is probably something she'd want to keep to herself -- vets on adcoms will call BS on that type of thinking if they were to come across it -- I know I would.
Tell her that Olin, Darden, Johnson, and Fuqua are good for starters. Each has fairly disproprotionate representation from military folks. A good way for her to reach out to those schools (or any other leading b-schools, for that matter) would be through the vets clubs.</p>
<p>I probably misunderstood her. She didn't have a lot of time to explain it to me and I really don't know anything about Army life. Apologies for any ruffled feathers from my miscommunication.</p>