<p>I've currently served about 2 years in the navy right now, I have about 4 years left to go. My question is: With 4 years left in the military, how do I make myself look better in order to get into the more selective institutions? I don't plan on re-enlisting in any way. I'm not afraid to say that I joined just for the educational benefits and I plan on getting out as soon as I can. I am currently taking some online classes to knock out a couple gen eds.</p>
<p>I plan on going to school to become an engineer and the current schools I'm looking into are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (home state)</li>
<li>University of Michigan at Ann Arbor</li>
<li>Purdue University</li>
<li>MIT (long shot?/dream)</li>
<li>Stanford (long shot?)</li>
<li>Georgia Tech (long shot?)</li>
</ol>
<p>You have two options.</p>
<p>1) Complete as many courses as possible to earn an associates degree, which hopefully covers the GE requirements for the colleges listed above and then apply for TRANSFER</p>
<p>2) or, take the SATs 1-2 years out from your separation date and apply as a Freshman</p>
<p>For option 1, make sure you maintain an high GPA. For option 2, you may have to submit HS transcripts.</p>
<p>You have lots of time before deciding what to do. Research a little bit and plan the next few years accordingly! Good luck.</p>
<p>Well, well, well…</p>
<p>No wonder you’re so quick to dismiss the Reserves. The fact that you “don’t plan on re-enlisting in any way” and “plan on getting out as soon as I can” seems to indicate the very Reserve option I offered would have been useful to you had you known when you signed up. Therefore your desire to obfuscate my advice with your false information seems to be a little jealousy that someone else is getting the advice you never did. Also explains why you’re so diehard about advising that other poster not to do college before the military.</p>
<p>“4. MIT (long shot?/dream)”</p>
<p>Let’s say your daddy had $100M to give to the school. Then an asteroid destroyed 99% of the population. You’d still be a long shot.</p>
<p>“5. Stanford (long shot?)”</p>
<p>You believe unsubstantiated claims are true until proven wrong, you’d wash out in the first quarter anyway, boy.</p>
<p>The fact that you present no SAT/GPA stats and expect people to judge your chances of getting into Stanford actually gives them all the information they need to make a judgement.</p>
<p>Haha hey what’s up dude. </p>
<p>It’s not jealousy, this post was posted a while before the other thread. I have nothing against the military and this has nothing to do with the OP from other thread. And while yes, I don’t have much in my initial post to support pretty much anything for anybody to use, I never did ask for a “chance me” sort of thread. I was hoping to get some information from prior enlisted who got into the top schools to see what they did to make themselves look better on the application. If you got advice, I’m all ears here.</p>
<p>If you can’t figure out colleges look at academic record rather than how many latrines you cleaned in the military, you better just stick with University of Phoenix.</p>
<p>Oh god, you don’t know how many people go to those god forsaken for profit schools. I shake my head every time they gloat about it. </p>
<p>We got a smartypants here haha. Of course I know they look at academic record, I’m not too worried about that part. What I need to know is what separates grunt A from grunt B in terms of what they did while they were in the service. :)</p>
<p>Dear God, if you think military gruntwork gets you Stanford admission, your mind is dimmer than a satellite image of North Korea.</p>
<p>Meh, if you want to continue this on going “discussion”, might as well go into the PM world. I foresee any reply becoming another 3 page “endless whack-a-mole game”. If you don’t want to continue the discussion in PMs, then we should stop replying to each other. Clearly we have different opinions.</p>
<p>Be sure to revisit in 4 years and let us know how your MIT and Stanford admissions go based off an application that lists grunt work as your qualification.</p>
<p>both of you are hilarious…the ongoing debate is like a soap opera. FWIW I did the Air National guard for the free state tuition, I think OP didn’t know the full range of options when he first enlisted. Given the lack of transparent info out there I think this is a common mistake for those looking for the educational benefits. So much misinformation out there. Anyways I digress…</p>
<p>Based upon my experiences applying I’d say the Military experience is a strong hook…you still need a perfect 4.0, a compelling plan for what you want to do w/yourself, strong essays, relevant EC’s to your interests, and strong LOR’s if you want in at a top 10ish school. OP take some classes at a CC…especially if it makes no distinction on the transcript that they were online. Earn a 4.0 over 30+ credits and I think you’ll have a chance…keep in mind top schools require SAT’s still for the most part. </p>
<p>Although my experiences extend no further than AF basic and tech school every adcom I’ve spoken with has said they like Vets…appears I’m getting the benefits of Vet status even though I only had to endure the full timer life for 9 mos instead of 6 years…not complaining.</p>
<p>What I think you should do is use your GI Bill and the yellow ribbon to go to Columbia-GS…I would have, but as a part timer I don’t get that fat GI Bill/yellow ribbon…this is the one place where I think you’ll reap the rewards of being active…seriously check out Columbia-GS/should be free for you and take advantage of that NYC BAH you get.</p>
<p>I obviously won’t be putting cleaning toilets as my qualification lol. It’ll look a little bit like ub3rmike’s qualification:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/veterans/1483359-made-cut-princeton-2017-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/veterans/1483359-made-cut-princeton-2017-a.html</a></p>
<p>I know that if I want to even think about getting into MIT and Stanford, I’m going to have to put in more effort than he did. I got wait listed out of high school, but I’m pretty sure I have a good shot at getting in the next time I apply.</p>
<p>If you’re still loitering around these forums in 4 years, I’ll tell you how it goes. I know I’ll be here probably to put up a “chance me” thread.</p>
<p>@yolocholo I’ll make sure to look into Columbia, thanks! By the time I get out, I’ll have met most of the requirements you have mentioned. Knowing me, I’ll probably end up re-enlisting into the reserves. Would you say being in the reserves is detrimental to your studies or no?</p>
<p>You’re telling me your GPA is similar and yet you have no clue how to source your claims? Looks like you had a home school teacher who was willing to overlook your special needs and rubberstamp you with A’s.</p>
<p>I would say being in the reserves IS detrimental to my studying…having to travel every month and spend a weekend on mindless tasks instead of studying isn’t the best way to spend time. Then there’s ORE/ORI’s that we do (might just be a guard thing) where they expect you to miss days during the week to again sit around and not accomplish much of anything. I’m pre-med and missing 3 days of chem/bio class is terrible. Since you’ll already have post 9/11 GI benefits not sure why on earth you would bother…I did it to get in-state classification in my state of enlistment so that I have easier med school options, as well as tuition being waived for my current school. </p>
<p>And then there’s always the threat of bi-annual deployments…depends on what reserve branch you join but even for the AF, those 2 month deployments can make you miss a whole semester. I have friends that chose to go to the desert, haven’t even gotten back into classes, and the unit returned mid fall.</p>
<p>So since you don’t need these perks as you’ll have full use of post 9/11 GI Bill I can’t imagine why you would want to. You enlisted for educational reasons so take things full circle and focus on school when your contract is up. Go to Columbia and focus on that top 5 ranked education you gave up 6 years of your life to earn! Best of luck!</p>
<p>Ah if only it were so easy to just “go to Columbia.”</p>
<p>optimism Zhanger! the military hook & assuming Citrus pulls a 3.8+ for 30ish credits and I don’t see Columbia-GS rejecting him. Good way to use that post 9/11 and the yellow ribbon b/c it’s insanely expensive otherwise</p>
<p>There’s a difference between optimism and drinking gallons of kool-aid.</p>
<p>CitrusTea does not strike me as someone who has brains to pull a 3.8+ if he believes sourcing is not required for claims to have validity, and who also believes it’s relevant to recommend retirement to a high school sophomore. The military hook means nothing unless you have done something noteworthy in it, and Citrus is counting his chickens before they’ve hatched by claiming his 2-year service career will ultimately reflect ub3rmike’s meritorious promotions etc.</p>
<p>I’ve met the proverbial 10 pound turds in a 5 pound bag such as OP. And yeah, they don’t go very far.</p>
<p>yolocholo, I thank you for the advice and your optimism, but you can’t change this person’s mind. He’s so hell bent on trying to embarrass me that it’s amusing. I’ve already said what I needed to say to him, he just enjoys beating a dead horse down when quite frankly, there is no horse left to beat. The only information about me he has is based off of what I said on the this forum, he’s conceited if he’s going to believe everything on the internet. But he’s one of those types of internet personalities that gets really butt hurt at anybody who wants to prove him wrong. Even if it’s a ■■■■■. So with that being said, Zhanger, you mad bro?</p>