HBS Military Prospective Students' Day

Just a heads up that HBS is holding its second annual (not actually sure if it's going to be annual, but it's a good bet it will be) Military Prospective Students Day on March 5th, on the HBS campus. This event is meant to introduce future applicants to HBS and to the benefits of an MBA.

I highly recommend that prospective military applicants attend this event if they can make it. The school really goes out of its way to introduce prospective students to the program and answer common questions such as life on campus, career opportunities post-MBA, and financing your education. This is also a good opportunity to meet some current former military students who can help answer and maybe even guide some of your application in the future. HBS military members are extremely helpful - just like most HBS students - and you should definitely introduce yourself and make some connections.

Time to sign up may be running short. Go here: http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/events.html and click on "On campus" at the bottom of the screen to open a list of events. You can register by selecting "Military Prospective Students Day." If for some reason you are not able to register in time, contact the AFAA (Armed Forces Alumni Association) on campus, or the school directly to see if they can still squeeze you in.

I was honored to help lead the inaugural Military Prospective Students Day last year, and am very glad to see the tradition continue. I also noticed that Wharton started doing the same thing this year as well. Good talent is always in demand!

As a side note, I would also recommend reading this interview with Dee Leopold. It's not a new article, but it does help provide more transparency and insight into the application process. If there's one takeaway I would take from the interview, is that admissions is highly driven by applicant profile - and less by what some applicants may feel is their individual achievements. One's upbringing, demographic background, undergraduate school, and place and type of employment, and to a much more subjective level - temperament - tend to dominate the selection process.

Am I competitive for Harvard Business School?

"Am I competitive for a top business school" is the most common question asked by readers of this blog. Unlike traditional application pools (consulting, banking, etc.), military applicants often don't have a point of reference as to what it takes to be competitive in their application. This can sometimes lead to a significant disparity between perception and reality. Some military applicants greatly overestimate their competitiveness, while some greatly underestimate. While there are probably over a dozen dimensions in which a military applicant may be evaluated, I believe that five elements can be used to accurately predict a significant portion of the application. I outline those five here, and include above, below, and in-zone ranges. Please note that there are other aspects of the application which are important, and these are not meant to be all-inclusive. Each applicant is considered as an individual by the school, and these calculations are not perfect. A committed applicant should always apply, and always let the school be the final decision maker, not other people's opinions. I will update these formulas as we continue to build a greater set of data to draw on in the future.

1. GMAT score

Highly competitive:	740+ and quant score over 90% percentile
Fairly competitive:	700-730 or quant score between 80-90% percentile
Below zone for competition:	Under 700 or quant score below 80% percentile

2. GPA

Highly competitive:	3.5+
Fairly competitive:	3.2 - 3.5
Below zone for competition:	Under 3.2

3. Career performance: experience relative to peers

Highly competitive:	Consistently top 10% among peers - or conveying consistent exceptional achievement beyond the typical peer group.
Fairly competitive:	Some periods in top 10-15% among peers - or conveying some exceptional achievement beyond the typical peer group.
Below zone for competition:	Cannot claim top 10-15% peer ranking in career - achievement mostly on par with peer group.

4. Extracurriculars

Highly competitive:	Excelled in college (i.e. varsity sports, organizational leadership, etc), plus deep and meaningful leadership or impact in an organization outside the military.
Fairly competitive:	Involved in highly competitive college activities (sports, debate, etc.)
Below zone for competition:	Cannot point to a record of excellence in extracurriculars or significant leadership outside of professional activities

5. Essays

Highly competitive:	Highly polished, multi-dimensional essays with a persuasive story about the applicant's past and a compelling vision for the future. Top 15% of peer applicant group in essay quality.
Fairly competitive:	Well polished essays that convey a compelling story about the applicant's past. Top 25% of peer applicant group in essay quality.
Below zone for competition:	Essays that are "pretty good" or worse - failure to significantly differentiate the applicant from his peers.

Overall...

For an overall assessment, use the following formula to add up your points:

• Highly competitive = 2 points
• Fairly competitive = 1 point
• Below zone = 0 points

• Add one point if undergraduate institution is a top 10 program (excluding service academies)
• Add one point for essays of true distinction - putting you in the top 5% of your applicant peer group in essay quality.
• Add anywhere from 1-3 points if you have a very unique and particularly valued background

• Subtract one point if undergraduate institution is not a top tier school (nationally recognized)
• Subtract one point for every year you are older than 28 (i.e. 1 point for 29, 2 points for 30, etc). Applicants with an extended military contract (i.e. doctors, pilots) may be exempt from this calculation.
• Subtract one point if a letter of recommendation is problematic or inappropriately written.
• Subtract one point if GMAT is 660-670. Subtract two points if GMAT is 630-650. Subtract three points if GMAT is 620 or lower.  
• Subtract one point if your GPA is below 3.0

Note:

• There is no point change either way for attending a military academy or for any particular MOS.
• Essays that are not competitive will kill the entire application, even if all other statistics are at the top.
• A poor interview performance may kill the entire application.

Add all your points up, and use this reference:

9+ points = Highly competitive for HBS (odds of admission are high)
7-8 points = Moderately competitive for HBS (odds of admission are moderate)
5-6 points = Below zone, but very much still in the fight (subtle differences will make all the difference)
4 points and below = Long shot

For top schools ranked after Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, reduce the necessary points by about 2.

I hope this information helps remove a little bit of the veil for application expectations. Regardless of how one scored in this conceptual projection, I would encourage everyone who aspires to attend HBS or other top business schools to apply. Never self-select yourself out... even if your odds are not high, let the school make the ultimate determination. There are always exceptions to every rule, and there are plenty of successful applicants who had a GMAT in the 600s and a GPA in the low 3's or even high 2's.

So you want to work in a start-up?

Over the past few years, I've debated one career topic more than any other: entrepreneurship versus traditional most-MBA jobs. Perhaps it's because of the types of people I surround myself with, but this question is on the forefront of many of my friends, including military veterans.

After having the exact same decision making process debated over and over again, and reaching the same conclusions over and over again, I decided to come up with a simplified decision matrix that I believe all entrepreneurs navigate in one form or another.

So for all those thinking that start-ups may be for you... get some dice out and play the following decision making game. If you make it to an end, congratulations! If you get stuck going in circles, you are one of the many who want their cake and to eat it too... you will have to compromise somewhere.

Click me...

Top 8 Military MBA Applicant Mistakes

Here are the top 8 most common mistakes I have seen military applicants make this season. The good news is that just about all of these can be addressed...

8. Not coaching their recommenders sufficiently

It’s the applicant’s responsibility to coach and educate his recommender, but often this is a senior officer, and doing so is contrary to the military chain of command and protocol. This awkwardness often leads to miscommunication and a “hope for the best” approach that won’t cut it.

Recommenders should ideally show new perspectives on the applicant, reinforce key applicant value propositions, and shore up perceived weaknesses. Often none of these happen in a military letter of recommendation. Some senior military leaders have written many letters, and are familiar with the process. Others however may not have a clue for what makes a good LOR, and may revert to language found on an applicant’s military performance report, which is often vague and full of not very useful hyperbole.

Applicants should coach their recommenders by making sure they understand what it is business schools look for, and educate them on their own applications and aspirations so that the recommender can do his part. 

Lastly, applicants should follow up regularly with the recommender to make sure the LOR is turned in on time, as late recommendations are unfortunately more common than they should be. If a recommender is waiting until the last minute to write your letter, that is also a bad sign he is not investing the time and thought necessary to write a compelling recommendation.

7. Thinking that they shouldn’t try to communicate specific career goals because they don’t know business well enough

“I don’t know anything about business, so I can’t write a specific career goals essay.” This is an initial approach taken by many military applicants. Showing that you have sufficient introspection to know what kind of career you want to pursue, and the ability to follow through with research as to what that actually means, is part of the point of a career goals essay. Not having business experience is not an excuse.

6. Not having enough non-military people review their application

A military applicant can write an essay that he is in love with, and all his military peers may also love it, but it might be confusing, offensive, or just completely incomprehensible to a civilian reader who has never met anybody from the military. If you have ever returned to your hometown after losing a member of your unit on a deployment, and heard for example, “Afghanistan? Oh, do we still have troops there?” – Then you already know what I am talking about. There is a large part of America that is largely insulated from the military. While we should give the admissions committee the benefit of the doubt, it is still to your benefit to get people who you would never otherwise engage with to provide feedback on your essays. I mean people who live far away from military bases, who don’t know anything about the military, and are a different gender and generation from you. Getting their perspective may point to serious holes in your assumptions about what some people actually know.

5. Writing a resume without a civilian perspective

This one is pretty straightforward. Translating your military accomplishments into civilian friendly language, getting rid of all jargon, and emphasizing what is important to a civilian reader necessitates help from a civilian who knows how to write proper resumes. Make sure you have a trusted advisor for this step.

4. Underestimating the GMAT

Never count on a GMAT score until you have taken the official test. I’ve seen applicants who sometimes consistently score 700 on practice CAT exams end up walking out of the testing center with something in the high 500s. That may be an extreme case, but it’s not uncommon for applicant to score 50-100 points less than they hoped for on the day of the actual exam. The reasons for this are outside the scope of this article, but the point is that don’t count on a score until you have an official one in hand. This means that you shouldn’t go forward with your application with a plan to just take the GMAT late in the ballgame and assume a top score. Taking such a strategy has caused many to delay for a later round, or force an application with a poor score.

The best thing to do is to take the GMAT well in advance…. Well before even starting applications. Having a score in hand will free you up to completely focus on the application itself, and give you a better idea on which schools you should apply to as well. If it’s too late to take it well in advance (at least 6 months prior to the application), then at least leave time to retake the exam a second time after 4-6 weeks if needed. One’s first shot at the GMAT really ought to therefore be an absolute minimum of 10 weeks prior to the application deadline. I also advice applicants not to work on their GMAT prep and essays at the same time if possible. Either is difficult enough on its own and takes a full commitment.

3. Underpreparing for the interview

Most military applicants have never had a b-school style interview in their lives. Knowing how to properly handle insightful questions, awareness of how to read and communicate body language, engaging the interviewer in conversation (not just monologue), feeling confident speaking about your history, your future plans, your familiarity with the school, and current market events, all take some serious time and effort.

Between the GMAT and essays, some applicants may spend hundreds of hours towards their application. With the interview weighing in as much as a third of your overall application, spending an hour or two in preparation shows a complete asymmetry in one’s planning. It would be like spending 200 hours preparing for ingress and egress on a mission, and spending 2 hours for actions on objective. Make sure you get the support you need to prepare if you are unfamiliar with these styles of interviews.

2. Assuming their military experience is unique

Military applicants sometimes think that their international, Pentagon, or MOS experience, by themselves, makes them unique enough to stand out from the crowd. Similarly, some applicants with weak GPAs from a service academy think/hope they will be cut a break from schools because life at a service academy is more demanding than non-service academies. All of the above are poor assumptions to make.

Of all the military applicants at a school like HBS, it is unlikely any MOS or deployment experience is the first they have seen. It is likely there is at least one, if not a half dozen or more other applicants with a similar enough profile. Furthermore, there are plenty of applicants with top GPAs from military academies, so the thought that attendance at a service academy, by itself, will mitigate a low GPA, is also a poor assumption. In other words, one should not over-assume strengths or underplay weaknesses in comparison to his competition.

None of the above implies that one’s military or undergraduate experience cannot be leveraged to deliver a great application. Certainly some experiences can be very compelling; they just can’t be assumed to be enough. It will still take a lot of effort to find your voice.

1. Self-selecting out of top schools

“I don’t have the stats for my dream school, so I’m not going to apply.” – More often than not, this is wrongly assumed. GPA and GMAT are not the only criteria… and why would you ever self-select yourself out anyway? At worst case, you lose the application fee and spent some time adjusting/improving your portfolio of application essays. Why not let the school make the final decision? The only way to guarantee you won’t get in is not to try.

Service Academy Representation at HBS

For those curious about historical military representation at HBS, I've done some research as to the number of military students at the business school since WWII. Historically the school did not have a way to capture military affiliation for its students, which makes precise numbers difficult if not impossible, but HBS does track undergraduate schools, which naturally includes military academies. I can therefore use military academy representation as a proxy for the total trends in veteran attendance at HBS. I'll explain more of this in a bit. For now, here is the data on US military academy representation at HBS (click to expand):

In the upper right hand corner of the above chart is the total number of military at HBS since 2000, which I have been able to calculate directly in the past (see note here). My data shows service academies  roughly represent about half of the military at HBS over the past 14 classes (to be precise 54% average with a 19% standard deviation), so if that rule stands going backwards pre-2000, we can interpret the above chart not just for service academy interest, but also by doubling the numbers for the total number of military veterans at the school. The one exception of this is probably in the late 1940s, when the number of veterans was probably extremely high, and dwarfed the service academy students.

Here are some observations:

• The peak years for veteran representation were during the HBS Classes of 1971-1973 (students entering from 1969 to 1971). It's unclear from the data whether the school was being proactive to admit Vietnam Veterans, or whether more veterans were applying. For those classes, it's likely there were over 100 veterans in each graduating class.
• The average military academy representation since WWII has been around 15 per year, which would support the argument for an average of ~30 military students per year. Since 2000, the average however has been 20 service academy students and 39 total US military per class, so slightly higher than historical average.
• The lowest representation was post-Vietnam, from 1975-1985.
• Except for the peak Vietnam War years, representation was very consistent and flat from 1955-1995. Since the mid 90s, there have been some periods of high variability, and a general increase.

Proportion of Service Academies at HBS

One can look at the chart above to see which service academies were represented when, but I also normalized the data to more clearly show the proportion within the academies themselves (click on the following graph):

Some observations:

• The dominant sources are USMA and USNA, which both have averaged around 7 per year since WWII, with a standard deviation of 5. 
• USMA slightly leads on USNA, with a total of around 500 USMA alumni versus 450 USNA alumni. 
• The third highest is USAFA alumni with 78, followed by USCG with 39, and Merchant Academy with 25, although the latter has only had 2 since 1990.
• Since 2004, USMA alumni have outnumbered USNA alumni by a factor of over 2 to 1.
• The greatest disparity occurred during the HBS classes of 1965-1969, meaning application years of 1962-1966, when USMA representation was only around 20% of the service academies. If one tries to analyze this as a phenomenon of the Vietnam war years, and compares it to post 9/11, it leads to inconsistent results, since USMA/USNA representation held largely steady post 9/11.

Before reading too much into any of this data, one needs to remember that:

• Admissions to HBS depends a lot on the philosophy and leadership of both the Dean of the school and the Dean of Admissions, which naturally change over time, and shape the makeup of the admission classes. It is therefore difficult to know if these results are more due to the school or the application pools changing.
• This data is not official, and while very accurate, it is not 100% accurate... it carries a slight margin of error, though it is the most accurate data I'm aware of.
• One should not interpret anything here to imply whether one undergraduate source is any more competitive than another, as from an admission point of view, all are highly respected, and one's personal and professional performance far outweighs the actual academy itself.

I hope this helps provide some historical context.

Business School vs. Law School

Most business school applicants are certain b-school is for them. Others though debate business school versus law school. The following is more food for thought...

In defense of law school
By an HLS Graduate (former USMC)

It will come as no surprise to most people reading this that B-school is the most common choice for EASing service members, and not without reason.  Here is the simple truth, most people who enjoyed their time in uniform will enjoy B-School more.  

I remember my first Marine Corps’ birthday in grad shool.  It was at the business school, and pretty much everyone there was from the B-School.  They were collegially chatting and having a laugh, and then there were we three sad souls from the law school joking about how we would make a pretty good fire team.  Frankly I think we were outnumbered by the exchange officers from France.   And as we mingled with the B-schoolers we all had the same reaction: We may have made a mistake.  

But as I reflect on my choice to get a JD I become more and more certain that it was the right choice.  I wont say it is the right choice for everyone, it isn’t, but I do believe it offers something an MBA doesn’t, and that is that it is rock solid evidence that you can sit in a chair for hours, synthesize vast amounts of written information, and write an iron clad analysis of it.  And I hate to say it, but that is what even the sexiest civilian jobs demand.  

So with that in mind here is a framework and some seed ideas about which graduate program is the one for you.

Cost: Time, money, and experience

Direct costs: Of course tuition+room+etc varies wildly but due to the extra year law school will be about half again more expensive than B-school.

Opportunity cost: That third year of law school is a year of salary you are missing out on, so that is a cost.

Subjective costs: without giving a comprehensive list I will submit that most vets will enjoy their classes, extra-curriculars, and classmates more at B-school than at law school.

Total cost: So with the above in mind some very rough numbers might look like this: 120K for an MBA vs. 160K for JD tuition + 70K of missed salary your third year or 230K, making law school almost twice as expensive, and significantly less pleasant.

Revenue: Reinforce strength or be the total package

Despite the extra pain upfront I think that the combination of a law degree and military experience is an especially powerful pairing in the long run. Employers look for basically the same things: leadership ability, work ethic, and intellectual horse power.  And for the average student and MBA covers the bases, but as a veteran you’ve already checked a few of those boxes.

Leadership: Employers are not worried about this one, as an officer or NCO you’ve had more leadership experience than anyone else your tenure.  They are also not worried about putting you in front of clients.  The military taught you to be respectful, to dress well, and to have the kind of bearing that sets clients at ease.  

Work ethic:  They also know that you are a hard worker, sort of.  Most employers’ views of the military are shaped by TV and movies, so they expect that you can run, drill, and execute Saving-Private-Ryan-style missions without complaint.  But they are worried about whether you can sit behind a desk for hours a day and crank through towers of reports or draft killer memos. And a JD will put their mind at ease since you don’t get through law school without becoming an expert at sitting and cranking.

Intellect: Finally there is the issue of intellect.  I won’t say that a JD is more intellectually or academically challenging than an MBA, but I will say that that is the perception.  To succeed on the GMAT and in B-School you need intellect, presence, leadership, quant skills, and a lot of common sense.  At law school the only one that matters is the first, and a bit of the last.  

Fundamentally I think that a veteran with a law degree is especially attractive to the top consultancies and corporations because you check all the boxes.  If you know you want to be a banker and do finance then go to B-School, but if you want to consult or go to industry I encourage you to think about how you would look to an employer, identify any gaps, and then choose the degree that fills those gaps most effectively.

	Business School	Law School
US presidents	2	12 started 7 finished, 3 more became lawyers through independent study
Current Senators	5	55
CEOs of fortune 100	32	12
Opportunity	Business, finance, consulting	Law, business, finance, consulting, public sector, social sector
Typical early tenure salary (top 10 schools)	~124K	~160K

-Geoff, guest blogger, former Marine Officer, Harvard Law School Graduate, and currently a consultant at a top management consulting firm.

The Harvard Age Curve - Part III

This is the third installment in our analysis of age of admission at HBS. While HBS does not publish specific age data, it has released undergraduate graduation data, which can be used to approximate the age of the HBS class.

The HBS Class of 2013 undergraduate data is available here. You just need to scroll down to its publication date of June 21, 2011. I've re-posted it here:

As I have done in the past, I'm going to use this data to try to capture the trends in the age of admission at HBS. Please note the following assumptions are made:

• The average student graduates from undergrad at age 22. Some graduate older, but some graduate younger, and this largely cancels out. For the vast majority of HBS students, 22 is the normal age for undergraduate graduation.
• Students are 1 year older at matriculation than they are at time of application. Since R1 application is 11 months prior to matriculation, and R2 application is 8 months prior to matriculation, this is a reasonable assumption. Between  the time that most students hit the submit button and begin class in Aldrich Hall, the vast majority will have had another birthday.

If one does not want to use either of these assumptions, they should refer directly to the graduation chart above. However, applying these assumptions, and comparing to previously published data, we come up with the following data for the Class of 2013, which I've superimposed on the Class of 2010 and 2012 data:

The data shows us the following (based on the previously listed assumptions):

• The average age slightly increased. For matriculating students between the Class of 2012 and 2013, the (approximate) average age at time of application went up from 25.06 to 25.38 years, or a difference of 3.8 months. This is 1.4 months older yet than the class of 2010.  So is this a new and intentional trend by HBS admissions? I think unlikely. I doubt they track this kind of data or pay attention to such granular detail. However, it is a helpful anchor point, and we can continue to see how this changes.
• HBS "sweet spot" is more diversified. In Class of 2012, approximately 78% of matriculating applicants were 24-26 years old at time of application. This number has dropped to 67%, which is definitely significant. The number of students 28 or older at time of application exactly doubled from 5.2% to 10.4%. At the same time, the number of younger, 23 year olds, increased from 9.8% to 12.7%. This is telling me that HBS is not necessarily "getting older" - but perhaps just diversifying their student class a little bit better. The result is that more younger and more older applicants are being considered based on the merits of their application.
• If you want to maximize your chances of admission, it's still to your significant advantage to apply by the age of 26, as only 1 in 5 students were admitted older.

What's driving this change? One can identify a few key change from the Class of 2012 to Class of 2013 (all data taken from the school's class profile page):

• PE/VC students dropped from 18% to 13%
• Financial services (including IB) dropped from 14% to 12%
• High tech/comm increased from 6% to 9%
• Manufacturing increased from 9% to 14%

So that's a drop of around 7% in finance, and an increase of around 8% in industry... applicants who come from places that actually "make stuff." It's likely many of these applicants have more work experience than the typical 2-3 years of an investment banker or 3-4 years of a PE applicant. I believe this slight shift in demographic is what is driving the change in age distribution, vice an actual deliberate decision based on age. In general, I don't think HBS looks at age so much as they do at the type of experience an applicant has.

It's taken me several years to absorb these trends, including spending the last two years at HBS itself,  to have a better opinion of why these patterns emerge. There are many other contributing factors, but I think a key one is that older applicants get primarily dinged because by the time they get to their late 20s (or early 30s), more is expected of them... and the types of people who have produced the kinds of results that would impress HBS at that age, no longer seek to apply to business school in the first place. That said, there are definitely exceptions... those are the 10% who are 28+ that make it, and bring a certain special track record to justify their admission. The onus is on the applicant to prove they fall in this category. There are also those who had an extended commitment out of college (PhDs, doctors, pilots, etc), and I think they are given a bit of a break since they are still technically "early" in their new career. HBS is forced to accept them older, if they want them at all.

Whether the new tilt towards industry and away from finance is influenced by the new Dean, Nitin Nohria, or not, is up to speculation. I know that HBS is continuously self-evaluating what kind of MBAs they want to produce, and as much as they tinker with the curriculum itself, nothing will have a greater influence over the graduating class than the selection of those who are invited to be a part of it.

An HBS student in Afghanistan

Daniel is an HBS student currently deployed in Afghanistan. Prior to HBS, he worked in finance but enlisted in the Marines Reserves as an infantryman. During his first year at HBS, he received his first deployment order, and Daniel is currently serving a 12 month activation cycle. He has had a tremendous amount of support from the school, including personally from the Dean, and will return to complete his MBA after his one year activation. HBS has historically been extremely supporting of its military students, and the administration worked with Daniel's situation to make sure he received full credit for the first year of his MBA. Everyone is looking forward to his return.

Recently I got an update from him, and he agreed to share some of his story online at my request. They are thoughts that certainly many soldiers and Marines have had at one point or another. The following is an excerpt from his writings in Afghanistan:

"Afghanistan, Helmand Province in particular, is the most different place I've ever been in my life. To begin with, everything is the coyote-tan color of dirt. Not surprising, given that the dirt here is a moon-dust-like powdery consistency that begins to puff up and out before my boots even touch the ground. Everywhere I look, all I see is the tan of the dirt and everything it covers: the ground, mud compounds, roads, rocks, our cammies, hesco barriers, trucks, even the air. The landscape is absolutely barren - just sand and rocks as far as the horizon in every direction. The fact that people live here at the precipice of non-existence is a testament to their tenacity. The dry air and hot sand conspire to literally suck the life out of anything exposed to the elements (and, let's face it, everything out here is exposed to the elements). Even the mud-walled compounds that they build straight out of the dirt around them look like a day of solid rain would extinguish all signs that anybody ever existed here. And that makes it all the more amusing to me that at least three world powers have fought over ownership of this land in the last 100 years. The only explanation I can think of is that those wars were initiated while standing in front of a map of the world, drawing lines from here to there. It's impossible to imagine someone with both feet on the ground staring at the dusty expanse of nothingness and deciding to throw thousands of young lives at "owning" what they saw. Owning the desert seems like an almost purely theoretical concept tantamount to owning a cubic foot of air - boundaries are invisible, there's basically nothing in it, and you can't do much with it. But from what we got as far as Afghan history classes goes, lines were drawn in the sky and the locals must have felt like aliens arrived in flying saucers.

The most surprising thing here has been the children. In an environment so devoid of stimuli, the kids are some of the most engaging, dynamic bunch I've ever seen. They run up to you on patrols and speak English! Unfortunately, it's clear that their English was learned from Marines (Helmand province being our main area of operations), which ranks slightly higher than learning English in jail, I suppose. But they absolutely exude a level of intelligence that is shocking to most of our prejudiced expectations. One little kid came up to us and said, in English, "Today you have six trucks! More trucks today. You are new!". Definitely not one that you want to turn down when asked for "biscuit" and "juice" in case the Taliban also has biscuits and juice to spare. Oddly, you only see kids and old people, nothing in between. Something definitely happens between childhood and old age, though, because the older people are the most reserved, quiet people I have seen. Despite their quietness, I don't imagine any of that intelligence and sharpness of mind goes away.

In general, the dissonance between life back home and life over here continues to demonstrate the absurdity of the universe, which (ironically) helps keep things light and my spirits up. Despite feeling a bit far from home, I'm pumped to finally be in Afghanistan doing what I joined the Marines to do."

Job well done Daniel. We are proud of you.

Announcing the New Business Plan Mentorship Program

Many military personnel are well suited to become entrepreneurs, but often don't know where to begin or are working in isolation. MilitaryToBusiness would like to support aspiring military entrepreneurs, and has formed the MtB Business Plan Mentorship Program to do so.

Every individual or team that submits their business plan executive summary will receive expert start-up advice to assess the feasibility of the plan, recommendations for next steps, and if appropriate, introductions to the venture capital community.

The best business plans will also receive formal recognition, which might help in your fundraising or at the very least, with business school applications if you still plan on applying. In summary, this mentorship program provides you the following:

• Feedback and advice on your business idea
• If appropriate, introductions to the venture capital or appropriate industry community in order to help take your idea to the next level
• Awards and recognition for the best plans, which will help differentiate you in business school applications should you still decide to apply to b-school. 

To find out more, visit the program's page here.

Turning off my cell phone

I had an interesting conversation with a 2008 HBS graduate this past Friday. This particular individual, let’s call him Jake, and I were talking about how to make management consulting work with a family. He gave me what turned out to be some great advice which got me thinking more broadly about work life balance.

Like me, Jake is married with two children. Unlike me, he never served in the military. Instead, he went and worked in the oil and gas industry for a few years after college and before deciding that a formal business education was the best next step in his career. We met during recruiting last summer and have been pretty close since then.

Jake is also a project team leader at the consulting firm for which we both work and has been a ‘top block’ guy from a performance standpoint since he started with the firm. What I like most about Jake isn’t that he’s been successful from a company point of view (though he’s achieved a level of success that I too would like to achieve), but that he’s been just as successful on the home front as well (our wives are also friends). And if you talk to Jake, he’d tell you that his priorities fall out in the exact opposite order in which I just listed them.

Although I’ve been back at the firm full-time for over a month now, we hadn’t had the opportunity to catch up in person until this past Friday. He asked me how things were going, and I explained to him that I had been immediately staffed on a project which has me going primarily to Chicago, but also to Houston on occasion. (That means that I’m taking the 7:25am flight out every Monday morning to either Chicago or Houston, and arriving back at home around 9 or 10pm every Thursday night. Friday, of course, is also a work day, though I spend it in the local office). Overall, I tell him, I’m working hard but that things are going well. We start talking about our families, and I explain to him that I haven’t quite settled into a routine yet in terms of balancing work demands with those of an engaged husband and father. I wasn’t looking for any sympathy, or advice for that matter, and fully expected Jake to say something to the effect of, “…yeah, it just takes time.” So I was a bit surprised when he actually offered some guidance. “Turn off your (work issued) cell phone and don’t look at it until Sunday night.” I commented that I’d have to give it a try, but more or less filed it away alongside all of the other John Maxwell-esque type guidance I’ve come across in my day.

On my drive home that day, however, I started thinking more about Jake’s advice. Having been on my current team for four weeks now, I can count on one hand (maybe two) the number of emails that have been sent out on a Saturday or Sunday. So my immediate thought was that maybe Jake’s advice was more relevant for people who were on “burner projects” that required round-the-clock work hours. Not to mention, it struck me as a fairly irresponsible thing for an early tenured consultant to do. I learned very early on in my plebe year at West Point that the key to success when you’re just starting out is to swim with, not against, the current. If something came up that required my attention, I should make sure that I was prepared to react, not get to it when I decided to get to it.

As I pulled up to my house, I saw my son and his friend playing basketball in our driveway. I grabbed my work cell phone from its location in my car’s cup holder, checked my email one last time, and pressed the power button until it powered off. I thought to myself, what the hell. I would give it a try this weekend and see how it goes.

So here we are on Sunday night. The world is still standing and I still have a job. More importantly, unplugging enabled me to focus 100% on being present with my family. I’m pretty sure that it also contributed to my decreased stress levels. Not surprisingly, we had a great weekend. And although I’m flying out yet again tomorrow morning, I feel less guilty about it.

My phone is now powered on and while there are a few emails in my work account, none of them are critical. Oddly, it was a subtle reminder that while my responsibility set as a consultant is still very real, it is nowhere near as vital as the one I had as an Army officer. Maybe it was that realization that I had hitherto failed to make. Or perhaps it was that work-life balance is simply a series of tradeoffs. Nevertheless, plugging back in on Sunday night, as opposed to every 10-15 minutes throughout the weekend when I would normally check my phone, feels like a much better and more sustainable way to do things. I’m pretty sure my wife and kids would agree.

- Rob C., guest blogger

MBA Military Applicant Guidebooks

I'm pleased to announce a series of guidebooks specifically geared for military MBA applicants. After collecting successful applications from military applicants at the top business schools (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Dartmouth, Columbia, Booth, Kellogg, UVA, and Duke), I hand picked best-in-class essays which effectively communicated the wide range of experience that military applicants typically struggle with in their application process. For each essay, I included a one page analysis highlighting why that essay was selected, what its strengths were, and what areas could be improved to make an even more perfect essay. The "Ultimate" guide has over 100 pages of essays, resumes, analysis, and advice.



The essay topics are broken down by category, such as leadership, accomplishments, setbacks, and community engagements. Military stories range from picking up one's first platoon, to passing a navy performance test, to commanding an aircraft, to life at a service academy, to going above and beyond on collateral duties typically assigned to a young officer. There are also many essays that are not directly military related, ranging from playing sports in college or organizing high school events. It's important to recognize the value of these essays as well, as it is sometimes difficult for military applicants to know where to balance military and personal stories. Reading through these essays will bring a tremendous amount of clarity to all these questions.

Additionally, I created a resume book of successful pre-MBA resumes, to give new applicants an idea of the kind of language that successful applicants used in their resumes to effectively communicate accomplishments and job descriptions. The resume book covers applicants who went to USMA, USNA, and USAFA, as well as private and public universities.

Overall, I believe these guides will serve tremendously to level the playing field for military applicants versus traditional (banking, consulting, etc) applicants, who can more easily gain access to successful examples of applications for people of their backgrounds.

The guidebooks are a great companion for somebody in the process of applications, as well as for anyone several years out who wants to get a glimpse into the kinds of activities, engagements, and valuable lessons that applicants were able to tap into as part of a successful application.

For more information on the guidebooks, click here.

MBA Joint Degrees - Are Two Degrees Better Than One?

Grad school is an investment – you spend time and money early in your career with the expectation that it will lead to better opportunities and higher salaries down the road. But would two stellar degrees set you up for even greater success and earning potential? Maybe, but maybe not.

Completion of a joint degree program entails a significant additional investment of resources, and you should closely analyze the opportunity costs in order to figure out whether a joint degree program is right for you. For many prospective students the chance to earn two degrees at a top tier university will be an opportunity too good to pass up. For many others though a joint degree may not make sense. Here is a framework for thinking through this difficult decision, based both on things I considered prior to matriculating to Harvard for a J.D./MBA and things I didn’t think about but probably should have.

The analysis below considers whether to obtain a second (joint) degree, assuming that you are already committed to getting one degree at a top school. Although I will attempt to present a general breakdown, I will use numbers and thoughts specific to a Harvard J.D./MBA on occasion, simply because this is the joint program with which I am most familiar.

Is a joint degree worth it financially?

Most joint degrees allow you to save a year versus completing the two degrees sequentially. However, the additional costs are still significant. From a purely financial perspective the question is whether over the course of your career you will be able to recoup the extra year(s) of tuition and the opportunity costs of not working while completing your additional degree. I think the best way to analyze the purely financial aspect of this decision is through a discounted cash flow analysis. In other words, the outcome will hinge on how much more you think you can earn over your career with the additional degree.

Because this is primarily a b-school oriented blog, I assume you, as a prospective student, are already committed to going to Harvard b-school and are trying to decide whether to also pursue a law degree (two extra years) or an Masters in Public Policy (one additional year). I used the following assumptions:

- Career remaining right now: 35 years

- Additional cost of J.D. – two years at Harvard Law School, including tuition and cost of living

- Additional cost of MPP – one year at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, including tuition and cost of living

- Average starting salary for MBA only = 2010 average starting salary for HBS grads

- Average annual raise = 3.6% (this is quite variable based on industry, personal performance, etc., but I based this number on a Wall Street Journal article from 2006 – before the current recession)

- Cost of Capital = risk free investment rate of 30-year T-bonds (4.12%)

Using these assumptions, your starting salary would need to be 9.2% higher with an MBA/MPP or 19.5% higher with a J.D./MBA in order to make up for the additional investment. If you expect to receive higher than average (3.6%) raises over your career, the amount of additional starting salary needed to catch up over 35 years increases.

From a financial perspective then, one way to look at the question is to ask whether the additional degree will enable you to coax 9%-20% more from your post grad school employer or to get into an industry that pays 9%-20% more on average.

Will a second degree open up additional job opportunities?

The obvious answer is yes – BUT… this is most true in fields for which the second degree is a requirement (e.g., law), or where you have a very clear idea of what you want to do after grad school and how both degrees support that direction. Although a second degree is unlikely to be a serious detriment to your future ability to get a job, it is not true that “it can’t hurt.” All else equal, employers would prefer to hire b-school graduates who are likely to remain with the company for a significant time. A second degree in an unrelated field opens applicants up to additional (although not insurmountable) scrutiny regarding commitment and career direction.

Is there anything else I should consider?

The one factor that I wish I had put more thought into prior to going back to school for four years is the importance of doing something productive and meaningful with one’s life. After having spent time in the workforce (as most MBA students have), going back to school can feel somewhat unproductive after awhile. Reading cases and going to class just isn’t doing a whole lot to make the world a better place. Hopefully grad school sets you up to make bigger differences in the future, but you will not be doing a whole lot to make anyone’s life better while you are at school. For me personally, a two year “break” to go back to school felt about right – during my final two years I was very ready to be doing something more productive than going to class.

Another factor that will play into many people’s decision making is prestige. Here, having two degrees is certainly superior to one. This point is likely to serve as the X-factor for many prospective students. After thinking through the financial and job opportunities that may arise from an additional degree, you may find that a second degree does not objectively make sense – but you still want to do it. That decision is not irrational or wrong as long as the prestige value of having two degrees outweighs the additional financial and time investments you will be making.

Whether or not to pursue a second graduate degree is a tough decision that will play out differently for every person. This article provides a framework for analyzing the financial and non-financial implications of that decision in an attempt to help you make the choice that is best for you.

- Kurt W., Guest Blogger, HLS/HBS 2011 (Bio)

Business School with a Family

Early on in 2009, my wife gave birth to our second child. As I held my daughter for the first time, a mix of emotions came over me. On one hand, I was as happy as could be. The Lord had already blessed me with a son, and now He was blessing me again with a beautiful little girl. But on the other hand, I felt a tremendous sense of nervousness. You see, the day before my daughter’s birth, I found out that I had been admitted to HBS. As exciting as getting that news was, it brought with it a guarantee of large scale, disruptive change for not just me, but for my family as well. Up until that point, the change had all been hypothetical; now it was more or less set in stone. Roughly seven months after my daughter’s birthday, I would be transitioning from the active duty Army, moving my now family of four to a new city where we knew no one, enrolling my son in a new school, going from generating an income to living off of student loans and starting a full-time graduate school program while my wife stayed home with our daughter. As I gazed into my daughter’s eyes, the gravity of my decision to pursue an MBA after the military and the effect it would have on my family hit me like a ton of bricks.

I suspect that this feeling of nervousness is common among many of you who have or who will soon have families – and rightfully so. But after graduating from HBS this past May, I can say that the two-years at business school were two very enjoyable years for both my family and me. Many of my friends (both students and spouses) will also tell you that they too thoroughly enjoyed their time at business school. Financially, everything worked out just fine (see my previous post on financing your MBA), I had a lot more time to spend at home than when I was on active duty, and my wife and I were ultimately happy with the decision we made. So was all that worrying and nervousness for naught? I would say unequivocally “no”. It certainly guided us in preparing for the transition. That said, we could have most certainly done things better along the way – beginning in the pre-matriculation period – that would have made our lives easier and somewhat more enjoyable. Below are a few of my lessons learned for making business school work with a family:

Before school:

• Reach out to other new admits with families, especially if your school uses a section/cohort/cluster approach to the first year. In most top-10 business schools, 5% or less of the incoming class will have children, and the all-consuming first year section experience will make getting to know parents outside your section exceedingly more difficult. And if your section is like mine and has only one student with children in it (me), not knowing anyone else in your class who shares that common bond with you can be problematic. Your school will likely set up a Facebook page for the new admits that should be a useful tool to help you identify other parents in the incoming class. Working on building those relationships before school will make those first few months all the more enjoyable for both you and your spouse.
• If you’re considering putting your child(ren) in daycare or preschool, be sure to apply for those programs as early as possible. The good programs on or near your school’s campus will fill up very quickly. If you wait until you actually move to the area, or wait to do it a month or two prior, it will most certainly be too late. Even if you’re waitlisted, being #2 or 3 on the list is much better than being #22 or #23.
• Join your school’s partners’ (a.k.a. spouse/significant other) club email listserv. In the time leading up to matriculation, emails will be sent regarding job openings at the university or in the community in which your spouse may be interested. They’ll also send links to welcome documents and other useful information guides that will help make your transition go more smoothly.

At school:

• Once you get to school, really get involved with the partners’ and kids’ clubs. My wife and I were a bit lukewarm in our involvement early on and wish we hadn’t been. These clubs are a great way to meet and really get to know others in your class who are married with children. Depending on how active you were during the pre-matriculation period, you may have already corresponded with some of these individuals and can thus continue building even deeper relationships. Nevertheless, both clubs are very active and are always planning something (family activities, partner outings, play dates, etc.). Put simply, they are great resources for you and your family and I can’t say enough about them. Think of them as a family readiness group of sorts.
• Treat business school like a job. I got better at this as time went on, but wish I had been more thoughtful about time management in the beginning because it really does make a world of difference. I’m convinced that the best way to be successful both at home and in the classroom is to treat business school like a job. You know your class schedule for the entire semester at the beginning of each semester and can (and should) therefore plan around it. I highly recommend devoting 30-45 minutes every Sunday night to mapping out your schedule for the next week. I used my Microsoft Outlook calendar, but any scheduling system will work. Start with blocking off time for family commitments and work your way down the priority ladder from there. But more importantly, stay committed to your schedule. Doing so will make your life easier and significantly less stressful. My guess is that you’ll be surprised at how much you can actually get done in a day if you’re thoughtful about and committed to your schedule. One caveat about being intentional with your time is that it does tend to remove spontaneity from your life. This is a tradeoff that you’ll have to make, especially in the fast-paced business school environment where it seems like there’s always something going on because there is always something going on.

Fortunately I’m not the first (and will surely not be the last) person to attend business school with a family in tow. The advice offered here only breaks the surface on how to make the two-year business school experience enjoyable for both you and your family. Reach out to alumni who started business school with families to learn how they prepared for and handled things once school actually began. Once at school, talk to classmates with families to learn their tactics for balancing school and home and strive to continually get better at it. With a little pre-planning, creativity, and commitment, I’m confident that you and your family will fondly look back on your MBA experience with tremendous satisfaction.

- Rob C., Guest Blogger and Co-Founder of MilitaryToBusiness: Consulting Service for Top Performers.