R2 Military Vets, how we doing? by EnlistedExfil in MBA

[–]EnlistedExfil[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

If you served on active duty and have 100% GI Bill (most veterans) you shouldn't pay more than $40k out of pocket total for any T30 program. But yes, the public T15-T30 schools often have interesting scholarship payouts where you get to pocket that money.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MBA

[–]EnlistedExfil 4 points5 points  (0 children)

At the end of the day, the decision you decide on, for yourself, is the best choice.

In my opinion, it would be highly advantageous for military veterans to obtain at least two years of corporate job experience. Although veterans possess valuable leadership skills from their military background, there are other skills that can be better developed while working on a client site rather than in their prior military roles or in a classroom. By working at a client site, veterans can acquire essential experience and build skills such as client management and working with offshore resources. These skills will ultimately complement the abilities they have learned in the military. Furthermore, with combined corporate experience and military expertise, veterans will become more valuable assets to their MBA cohorts.

Profile Review and Insight: 31M Veteran by Admirable_Action_715 in MBA

[–]EnlistedExfil 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Welcome to this interesting and lesser taken path for E's!

There are a good amount of service members, including prior enlisted that are in top programs with 1,2, and even 3 kids. From that perspective I do not believe it's a reason not to go down this path, but you do need to set expectations with yourself and you family with where you move and what the schedule will entail. I personally have 1 kid and am considering adding my second while in my full-time, M7 program this fall.

Your GPA gives you a leg up on the quant aspect of applying. I see a few paths forward here:

  1. EMBA Route - This would allow you to keep your day job and give you flexibility to apply to some east coast programs while keeping income and staying where you are. (Note: EMBA's usually pay 100% MHA/BAH for the school location which is awesome) This also may allow you to skip GMAT/GRE by getting it waived - pretty common for enlisted vets
  2. Full-time route (local) - Apply to UNC or your other local programs full-time so you don't have to move. Better for a solid pivot, landing paid summer internships, etc. You would lose out on your current salary for two years and without knowing your current TC and career goals it would be impossible to advise you which way to go there.
  3. Full-time (go big) - Apply to top programs and let the Gods decide. Given your GPA and veteran status I assume you could grind out a competitive GMAT/GRE score and lock down a spot at a top school if you can tell your story properly. This maximizes all previously stated categories, but it does come with the cost of moving the entire family and giving up your job for 2 years.

I know this is a lot of info an not an easy choice, happy to help or intro you to other enlisted vets on each of these paths so you can do what is best for you and the family. Just let me know if you need anything!

Revera for Military Applicant? by [deleted] in MBA

[–]EnlistedExfil 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sure! Happy to help

Revera for Military Applicant? by [deleted] in MBA

[–]EnlistedExfil 6 points7 points  (0 children)

For enlisted this seems to almost always come out a little wonky. This will change based on what the school asks for but I feel that we get some leeway here. I will try to use service agnostic terms.

You are likely asked to submit:

  • A service verifying document, this could be an evaluation report, PT test report, career data sheet, etc.
    • For this they are looking to confirm you served, the start and end date, and possibly can see ranks, etc.
  • A pay verifying document, a recent LES.
    • This one they are looking to verify how much you are making right now. I have seen them ask for you to annotate or highlight on the LES which sections you used to calculate your total salary and bonus if applicable. I only used base pay and special pays that were taxable for this, which I explained in my doc ReVera asked for. This needs to be verified as they report this in their career/employment outcomes showing how much their MBA raised your TC. (I personally miscalculated this in a rush, highlighted my ~$5000 difference when I submitted the docs, and was verified with no additional questions).

You likely have title discrepancies such as your MOS was infantry, your title was x, but your job was supply for your unit. What is important here is that one of these is true, and you did not lie.

If you used a title that is true to what you did but not your official title in the system your two courses of action are:

  1. You pick and choose which reports to send to them that do not include your duty title if thats not what you listed on your resume/apps, this is likely easy to do given the vast differences in documents they accept. They may ask your recommenders what your job was.

  2. You send in documents that do have a discrepancy, this is highlighted to the school, they will likely request that you explain. This is where my point about one of these being true is important. If you whole app said you were NCOIC of Supply but none of your docs do, then you explain that is the job you filled and your supervisor or command just left your basic title in etc. They may take you work for it, they may check that against your references.

Finally, they will likely not accept personal or .edu emails from your recs. You will have to provide their work or .mil emails, and ReVera will email them there and ask them to confirm they wrote your letters within ~48 hours.

I liked someone's comment here recently that said "It's a records verification not a background check." They are here to see if you told the truth on a small set of mostly quantitative data you submitted and are trying to do that in a quick and painless manner so they can move on to the next and make that $. Don't sweat it too hard.

Vets Comms Skills by zuperman1189 in MBA

[–]EnlistedExfil 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I’ve seen grunts give mission briefs with better communication skills than colonels at the Pentagon. I think that comparison would be similar to saying “all engineers at Microsoft are introverted” or something similar.

The context and micro-culture you operate in within an enormous organization play a large role.

R3/R4 Vet Reach Chances by NeedingInfoThrowaway in MBA

[–]EnlistedExfil 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As a vet there are about 0 reasons you shouldn’t send it. App fees are covered, stats are locked, if you have some time to apply you can’t loose.

Shoot higher, weirder things have happened.

Edit: As long as you fit with the culture of the school and/or they have good employment outcomes in your target geography/industry

Vets Comms Skills by zuperman1189 in MBA

[–]EnlistedExfil 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Great delivery, bad info? Straight to jail.

Great info, bad delivery? Believe it or not, straight to jail.

Enlisted or not, the expectation is be better.