Military MBA

Are you transitioning from the military and looking to the MBA as your next challenge?

Vets and current servicemembers, yes it’s a total cliche to say it but, EssaySnark does appreciate your service to the country. You didn’t have to join up, but you’re a bad-@ss, and you did.

This page offers some military-specific resources for applying to business school, including some special military-only offers that we make available for MBA admissions consulting.

Over the course of 10+ years, EssaySnark has been seeing MBA admits from the military contingent to: Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA, Yale, Columbia, Booth, MIT, Darden, Tuck, Wharton and Ross — and lots more schools, including European programs like Cambridge and INSEAD and plenty more! We know what it takes to get in and can offer some free resources to you as a military candidate to help you get there.

If you’re applying for an MBA in 2019, you should know that things have dramatically heated up in MBA admissions. Like other candidates, military applicants are coming to us even more prepared, with even more impressive profiles. It’s one of the few sectors of the bschool landscape where competition has gotten tighter since 2017.

Want to understand how you stack up? We offer several ways to help you in the journey from the military to MBA – see below for details – or you can start by browsing through our archive of blahg posts tagged for military candidates (some require signing in under an account with Military MBA permissions, which you can get for free based on instructions below).
 
 

Military MBA News

Some recent highlights:

Yale SOM is now making sure you have 100% tuition coverage matching your Yellow Ribbon benefits – though other schools like Chicago Booth were already doing this too, right?

NYU Stern also has a very generous scholarship and pre-matriculation program available to military students coming into their full-time MBA. The Fertitta Veterans Programs is unique among top bschools and this will be making NYU a preferred choice for many, we expect.

In addition, Cornell Johnson has been VERY welcoming to the military candidate lately. Military students went from 2% of the Class of 2013, to an incredible 11% of both of the Classes of 2018 and 2019. We don’t know of any other school that’s admitted such a high proportion, though the Johnson class tends to be smaller (~275 students) so in absolute numbers it’s not as extreme as it sounds.

The Class of 2020 profile at Darden also showed an appreciation for the military candidate: 6% of their full-time class are transitioning or active duty.

You people are popular!

That being said: It is definitely harder for you folks if the profile has significant weaknesses, since there are simply more of you to choose from nowadays. A higher GMAT score can be a much more important boost than used to be needed for a military candidate to stand out at the most competitive schools. You don’t need to get into the stratosphere with your score — but lots of military candidates do report much more impressive totals than used to be common. It’s getting tougher for everyone!!

EssaySnark’s history of service to you

*In 2015, some unfortunate experiences caused us to scale back (explained below). Since then, we’re very grateful that all military BSers most of them have had good manners! apparently we got played by another one recently, but thank you to everyone else for making us feel good about helping y’all out). Here’s a testimonial from a 2015 military candidate that attests to some value.

Current policy

Military candidates always get a free blahg membership and free access to the Military MBA microsite and all military-specific posts on essaysnark.com.

In addition, effective March 17, 2015, we will offer pro bono specific MBA admissions consulting services to military candidates on a referral basis.

If you come to us recommended by a former Brave Supplicant, we’re happy to help you with our standard set of free military MBA offerings we’ll consider your request for a free Comprehensive Profile Review. (If the person referring you has referred others who were ungrateful f@cks, then sorry, you’re going to be refused. Referrers: When you tell your buddies about us, please explain the “good manners” thing, or your friends are all gonna be blackballed. Thanks.)

Didn’t find us by a referral? No problem. Even if you just wandered into Snarkville and you don’t know a previous BSer who can offer a referral, we will still entertain requests for assistance and will gladly set you up with our standard goodies for military types.

(To understand the history and why we now have constraints on the pro bono stuff, please see this post; unfortunately in July/August 2016 we are again feeling like suckers since we did another 4 freebie reviews for guys who said literally nothing back afterwards – no reply, response, comment, or even acknowledgement of any sort communicated back to us – and yes we know they received it because they logged on to retrieve it. Four guys. WTF. That represents ten hours of work. WTF again. When was the last time you did ten hours of work for four different people – work that can help each of them tremendously in their ambitions in trying to achieve something very difficult – where your effort was literally not even acknowledged by anyone on the planet? It’s not like we’re asking to be granted the Nobel Prize here. Honestly, just a comment saying “Thanks!” somewhere would be nice. Yeah, and while we’re at it, “Get off of our lawn!”)

Anyway: If you’re a military candidate looking to transition to bschool, please don’t hesitate to reach out – we will be able to offer you something on the site for free – but we’re generally disenchanted ATM about doing more of these time-intensive customized assessments. We’re sure that you are not an ahole, but…

Still reading? Good, glad we didn’t scare you off. We do want to see you successful, we promise!!

We have steeply discounted offers available to qualified military applicants: Comprehensive Profile Review (currently $99 instead of standard price $ 1449.00) and Complete Essay Package (currently $ 999.00 instead of standard price $ 1449.00) — you may want to take advantage of those (please email via instructions below for details). Paying for stuff makes for a cleaner transaction all around and we don’t expect anyone ever to come back with a ‘thank you’ when they bought it even at this discounted price. You plunk down a little bit o’ cash, you get a screaming deal of all our in-depth feedback and guidance, you can go on your merry way and we don’t mind if we never hear back again. Easier, right?

Some of this page is accessible to approved military candidates only.
You are not logged in. Please log in to continue, or follow the instructions below to request access.

Please follow these instructions for access to the Military MBA Microsite!

Offer available to current or former members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

1. Email your request for access to military at essaysnark dot com
2. Please tell us your full name
3. We need at least two of the following:

• your resume (can be a work in progress, need not be beautiful or final)
• a current set of orders
• your Proof of Service letter
• a scan of an official form of ID (state driver’s license or passport, or selfie described below)
• send the email from your .mil address

We understand that you can’t photocopy your CAC but how about taking a selfie holding it, with your thumb over the QR code, and sending that? The point is that we want to see that you possess one; it doesn’t have to be a close-up with the details. Bottom line, we do need something to verify you. We’ve had some fakers try to take advantage of our generosity so we need to get some evidence that you are qualified for these services.

We also have special deals for Peace Corps and Teach for America alumni.

• Harvard
• Stanford
• Wharton
• Columbia
• Tuck
• MIT
• Duke
• Tepper
• Darden
• Cornell
• Berkeley
• Yale
• Ross
• LBS

So pretty much, ALL THE SCHOOLZ. And we’re here to help you no matter what stage of the game you’re in.

As part of our ongoing program to support to military MBA candidates, we offer:

• a free three-month membership to the EssaySnark blahg
• access to this Military MBA microsite
• an opportunity for a pro bono or heavily discounted Comprehensive Profile Review (available to U.S. servicemembers only)
• steep discounts on other admissions consulting services
• free access to the Crowd-Sourced Essay Reviews private forums for those willing to contribute – contact us if you have some essay drafts ready for critique by fellow Brave Supplicants, and you’re ready to provide comments on theirs

We also published The Military Candidate’s Guide to the MBA, a complete how-to from EssaySnark. You can pick yours up here or, if you purchase future admissions consulting services from us (after your freebie Profile Review) then we’ll throw in the Military MBA Guide for free. (Again, you can read this post from April 2014 to understand why we’re not giving the guide away to everyone; this may change in the future – hopefully.)


Here’s what one servicemember said after receiving their pro bono Comprehensive Profile Review:

EssaySnark,

That might have been THE most helpful thing I’ve received throughout this entire b-school application process. Thank you.

And another comment:

Thank you for the great feedback! It was far more than I ever expected.

One more:

I just wanted to acknowledge receipt of the profile review and thank you for your analysis. It is clear from my initial read that this product definitely took some time and you did it for free- I really appreciate it. I also appreciate the frank assessments and recommendations- it made me do some hard thinking and I already contacted (school) for more information and contacted their veterans group. So that was a great initial takeaway and recommendation.

Thank you for that! (See, we know that not everyone is ungrateful.)

If you’re a current or former member of the U.S. military, email military at essaysnark dot com with the verification items above to request access. And thank you for your service!

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