Military To Business

Am I competitive for Harvard Business School?

2012-01-25T19:51:00.004-06:00

"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: ratings relative to peers

Highly competitive:	Consistently top 10% among peers
Fairly competitive:	Some periods in top 10-15% among peers
Below zone for competition:	Cannot claim top 10% peer ranking in career

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 1-2 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?

2011-11-18T20:14:00.001-06:00

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

2011-11-04T20:42:00.002-05:00

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 theirrecommenders sufficiently

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

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

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

Lastly, applicants should follow up regularly with therecommender to make sure the LOR is turned in on time, as late recommendationsare unfortunately more common than they should be. If a recommender is waitinguntil the last minute to write your letter, that is also a bad sign he is notinvesting the time and thought necessary to write a compelling recommendation.

7. Thinking that theyshouldn’t try to communicate specific career goals because they don’t knowbusiness well enough

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

6. Not having enoughnon-military people review their application

A military applicant can write an essay that he is in lovewith, 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 nevermet anybody from the military. If you have ever returned to your hometown afterlosing a member of your unit on a deployment, and heard for example,“Afghanistan? Oh, do we still have troops there?” – Then you already know whatI am talking about. There is a large part of America that is largely insulatedfrom the military. While we should give the admissions committee the benefit ofthe doubt, it is still to your benefit to get people who you would neverotherwise engage with to provide feedback on your essays. I mean people wholive far away from military bases, who don’t know anything about the military,and are a different gender and generation from you. Getting their perspectivemay point to serious holes in your assumptions about what some people actually know.

5. Writing a resumewithout a civilian perspective

This one is pretty straightforward. Translating yourmilitary accomplishments into civilian friendly language, getting rid of alljargon, and emphasizing what is important to a civilian reader necessitateshelp from a civilian who knows how to write proper resumes. Make sure you havea trusted advisor for this step.

4. Underestimatingthe GMAT

Never count on a GMAT score until you have taken theofficial test. I’ve seen applicants who sometimes consistently score 700 onpractice CAT exams end up walking out of the testing center with something inthe high 500s. That may be an extreme case, but it’s not uncommon for applicantto 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 isthat don’t count on a score until you have an official one in hand. This meansthat you shouldn’t go forward with your application with a plan to just takethe GMAT late in the ballgame and assume a top score. Taking such a strategyhas caused many to delay for a later round, or force an application with a poorscore.

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 upto completely focus on the application itself, and give you a better idea onwhich schools you should apply to as well. If it’s too late to take it well inadvance (at least 6 months prior to the application), then at least leave timeto retake the exam a second time after 4-6 weeks if needed. One’s first shot atthe GMAT really ought to therefore be an absolute minimum of 10 weeks prior tothe application deadline. I also advice applicants not to work on their GMATprep and essays at the same time if possible. Either is difficult enough on itsown and takes a full commitment.

3. Underpreparing forthe interview

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

Between the GMAT and essays, some applicants may spendhundreds of hours towards their application. With the interview weighing in asmuch as a third of your overall application, spending an hour or two inpreparation shows a complete asymmetry in one’s planning. It would be likespending 200 hours preparing for ingress and egress on a mission, and spending2 hours for actions on objective. Make sure you get the support you need toprepare if you are unfamiliar with these styles of interviews.

2. Assuming theirmilitary experience is unique

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

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

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

1. Self-selecting outof top schools

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

Service Academy Representation at HBS

2011-10-23T18:20:00.003-05:00

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

2011-10-09T23:22:00.001-05:00

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 lawschool
By an HLS Graduate (former USMC)

It will come as no surprise to most people reading this thatB-school is the most common choice for EASing service members, and not withoutreason. Here is the simple truth, mostpeople 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 prettymuch everyone there was from the B-School. They were collegially chatting and having a laugh, and then there were wethree sad souls from the law school joking about how we would make a prettygood fire team. Frankly I think we wereoutnumbered by the exchange officers from France. And aswe mingled with the B-schoolers we all had the same reaction: We may have madea mistake.

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

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

Cost: Time, money,and experience

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

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

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

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

Revenue: Reinforcestrength or be the total package

Despite the extra pain upfront I think that the combinationof a law degree and military experience is an especially powerful pairing inthe 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 veteranyou’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 elseyour tenure. They are also not worriedabout putting you in front of clients. The military taught you to be respectful, to dress well, and to have thekind 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 areshaped by TV and movies, so they expect that you can run, drill, and executeSaving-Private-Ryan-style missions without complaint. But they are worried about whether you can sitbehind a desk for hours a day and crank through towers of reports or draftkiller memos. And a JD will put their mind at ease since you don’t get throughlaw school without becoming an expert at sitting and cranking.

Intellect: Finally there is the issue ofintellect. I won’t say that a JD is moreintellectually or academically challenging than an MBA, but I will say thatthat is the perception. To succeed onthe GMAT and in B-School you need intellect, presence, leadership, quantskills, and a lot of common sense. Atlaw 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 isespecially attractive to the top consultancies and corporations because you checkall the boxes. If you know you want tobe a banker and do finance then go to B-School, but if you want to consult orgo to industry I encourage you to think about how you would look to anemployer, identify any gaps, and then choose the degree that fills those gapsmost 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

2011-10-02T19:38:00.000-05:00

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

2011-09-30T19:49:00.001-05:00

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 placeI've ever been in my life. To begin with, everything is the coyote-tan color ofdirt. Not surprising, given that the dirt here is a moon-dust-like powderyconsistency that begins to puff up and out before my boots even touch theground. Everywhere I look, all I see is the tan of the dirt and everything itcovers: the ground, mud compounds, roads, rocks, our cammies, hesco barriers,trucks, even the air. The landscape is absolutely barren - just sand and rocksas far as the horizon in every direction. The fact that people live here at theprecipice of non-existence is a testament to their tenacity. The dry air andhot sand conspire to literally suck the life out of anything exposed to theelements (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 aroundthem look like a day of solid rain would extinguish all signs that anybody everexisted here. And that makes it all the more amusing to me that at least threeworld powers have fought over ownership of this land in the last 100 years. Theonly explanation I can think of is that those wars were initiated whilestanding in front of a map of the world, drawing lines from here to there. It'simpossible to imagine someone with both feet on the ground staring at the dustyexpanse of nothingness and deciding to throw thousands of young lives at"owning" what they saw. Owning the desert seems like an almost purelytheoretical concept tantamount to owning a cubic foot of air - boundaries areinvisible, there's basically nothing in it, and you can't do much with it. Butfrom what we got as far as Afghan history classes goes, lines were drawn in thesky and the locals must have felt like aliens arrived in flying saucers.

The most surprising thing here has been the children. In an environment sodevoid of stimuli, the kids are some of the most engaging, dynamic bunch I'veever seen. They run up to you on patrols and speak English! Unfortunately, it'sclear that their English was learned from Marines (Helmand province being ourmain area of operations), which ranks slightly higher than learning English injail, I suppose. But they absolutely exude a level of intelligence that isshocking to most of our prejudiced expectations. One little kid came up to usand said, in English, "Today you have six trucks! More trucks today. Youare new!". Definitely not one that you want to turn down when asked for"biscuit" and "juice" in case the Taliban also has biscuitsand juice to spare. Oddly, you only see kids and old people, nothing inbetween. 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 sharpnessof mind goes away.

In general, the dissonance between life back home and life over here continuesto demonstrate the absurdity of the universe, which (ironically) helps keepthings light and my spirits up. Despite feeling a bit far from home, I'm pumpedto 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

2011-09-11T20:40:00.000-05:00

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

2011-08-28T21:29:00.003-05:00

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

2011-08-27T15:40:00.011-05:00

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?

2011-08-06T17:55:00.003-05:00

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

2011-07-26T09:34:00.003-05:00

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.

Military versus MBA and private sector careers

2011-07-16T20:50:00.001-05:00

A lot of people ask me questions like: Why did you decide to get out of the military? Now that you've made the transition, what do you think of your MBA experience? What about your private sector career path? How do you compare a military career to one that an MBA and a private sector career may offer?

The purpose of this article is quite ambitious... to provide some insights onto the last question: comparing a top military career to a high trajectory civilian one.

All of the questions I listed have complicated answers and are really separate from each other, despite having a similar theme. Among my peer group, people generally got out of the military for the following reasons:

Frustration with lack of meritocracy and lack of control over one's own career
The inability of the military to match job positions that actually make use of one's individual skills and desires
Being required to work for weak superiors
General frustration with unnecessary bureaucracy

Certainly some people got out for opportunities to make more money and not have to deploy away from one's family, but those were much less influential decision factors, at least among my peers. After all, low pay and deployments was something we knew we were signing up for. The list I put forward above however, were not, and what's worse, are largely self-inflicted by the military.

A much more comprehensive study on why some of the best military officers leave the service was conducted by a friend of mine at the Harvard Kennedy School and is available for download. It revealed that many military officers believed that top officers would stay in the service if the best officers got the best assignments, were promoted faster, had more opportunities for professional development (such as graduate school), and received pay for performance instead of time-in-service. This is a list that the private sector is fairly good at accommodating, which is why I believe so many leave for the private sector, not because of absolute pay levels or deployments.

Top performing officers who decide to stay in despite these challenges do so because of an unbelievable devotion to duty and to their troops, despite the realization that they could likely contribute in many more ways to the world by untapping their potential in the private sector. This type of leader who decides to stay in the military is rare, but fortunately there are some who do. Many don't however, and that perpetuates the cycle.

Comparing a top military career and a top civilian post-MBA career

So now let me get to the original question I am trying to address: comparing military and top MBA civilian careers. For the purpose of this comparison, let's make the following assumptions about the individual we are applying this to:

If he/she stays in the military, he/she will be a top performer and is on track to achieve the pinnacle of all military positions as a field grade officer.
If he/she gets out of the military, he/she will go to a top business school and enter a high trajectory civilian business career.

So before we begin to "compare" the military and a top post-MBA career trajectory, we have to first agree on what exactly we are comparing. We can compare all sorts of things, such as job satisfaction and financial compensation. We already know that for financial compensation, the military loses, so that is not a very insightful exercise. But what about job satisfaction? That is extremely difficult to measure in such broad context, and people will certainly disagree about how to measure job satisfaction.

So for my analysis, I decided to use a rough proxy for job satisfaction: responsibility. Responsibility is something which, though not a perfect proxy, can be more easily measured (how many people do you command? How many jobs do you influence? How much money do you manage? How much impact do you have on those you manage/command?). I also believe that for the go-getter personality I am conducting the analysis with in mind, he is highly motivated by the impact he can make in his life, and therefore responsibility is high on that list which drives job and overall life satisfaction. This does ignore other things like work-life balance, but we have to start somewhere in answering the question.

As I began to think of how I could explain my thoughts on the subject to somebody who is even outside of the military, I realized how complicated it would be, and decided to capture the essence in one graphic, which is posted below.

An explanation of some of what you see:

Job responsibility in the military is highly erratic. People who leave company command may wait in some cases 10 years before getting close to the level of responsibility they had before, even if they are the best performers in the entire military.
Job responsibility in the military, given the assumption of a highly successful career, while fluctuating, is still much more predictable than the private sector. The blue military line is fairly predictable until one hits 22+ years of service, whereas the private sector career begins to significantly diverge and be much more unpredictable within a few years after business school. The dotted lines in both cases represent the upper and lower limits of, say, 90% of the target audience.
Both the military (blue) and civilian (black) lines lead to similar highs and lows (in terms of responsibility) at the end of one's career. Whether one is running an entire military branch of service, or overseeing a company that employes 400,000 people and drives global innovation, both have very very high levels of responsibility.

What else can we see from this graph? We can clearly understand why people get out of the military when they do; either after their initial 4-5 year commitment or after approximately 8 years. Once somebody makes the commitment to go past 10 years, it doesn't make as much sense to leave at say, 12, 14, or 15, especially given guaranteed pension at 20 years:

Career Abyss: Losing responsibility with time

Another surprise that most civilians have when seeing this graph is the concept of diminished responsibility for significant amounts of time in one's career despite peak performance and output. For example, a Lieutenant who is done with his platoon leader/command time, may have to wait another 3-4 years before being in a position of greater responsibility. If an officer is a Company Commander deployed overseas in his 7th year in the military, it can be argued that he will not have that same level of responsibility until he is a Battalion Commander, or at least an XO or S-3, which will be at least 6-8 years no matter what. However, if somebody leaves the military after Company Command, he will have to actually take a step down in responsibility post-MBA, and many will also have to wait another 6-8 years before being back at a similarly high level of responsibility. The transaction cost of leaving the military and starting an entirely new career can therefore be very daunting.

Another consideration, is that if that same officer is not deployed while in his Battalion level positions, it's possible that an officer will never again have as much truly impactful responsibility as when he was deployed as a Captain leading a company, even if he stayed and performed at the top of his abilities for another 30 years. These concepts are foreign to civilian counterparts, which typically expect a gradual accumulation of responsibility through one's career, though the idea is probably at least subconsciously understood my most military officers.

Another consequence reflected in this graph is the divergence of professional progress in the civilian sector versus the predictable and limited growth path afforded in the military. In other words, in the civilian career, one's path has a lot of flexibility associated with it, and to a much larger extent, is driven by one's performance and goals:

Aligning incentives

So people who will tend to ride along the upper red line have incentive to get out of the military, while people who will ride closer to the lower red line, have some incentive to stay in the military. This creates a perverse environment encouraging the best officers in the military to get out, as highlighted in the Kennedy School study. That is not to say that many top officers don't stay in the military, but those who do generally do so knowing that they sacrifice many career opportunities... though when it comes to the honor of leading troops, this can't fairly be compared.

In Summary

Military careers have extreme peaks and lows
Military officers have very little to no control when they can serve in the peaks, and are subject to some very long periods of lows
For some, the peaks make an entire career worth it
For others, they see potential to perform at a higher level when unbound from the bureaucratic, time-based promotion system of the military.

Some may trade the responsibility of managing 100,000 people in a private sector career for the honor of leading 12 in combat in the military. Unfortunately, the latter can only be done for a relatively very short time out of a long military career. Furthermore, in the private sector, one can rise in responsibility and contribute roughly proportional to one's performance and capability, which is not generally possible in the military (whether justified or not), therefore driving many top performers out.

There are many tradeoffs with both careers, and one can do a lot of good in both. The ideas in this article are well understood by many junior and mid-grade officers in the military (though I'm sure some would add a very different perspective). Some decide to stay in and some decide to get out... much of it depends on one's personality and priorities. It is important for junior officers however to understand some of these dynamics as they ask themselves the key question of whether or not they will stay in the military for a career or not.

Disclaimer: One things that is difficult to capture in this article is the different type of responsibility one can have in the military versus the private sector. For example, if a young team member is responsible for 4 lives in combat, that is certainly more responsibility than a manger who oversees 4 people in a shop. But how does that compare to a manger that is responsible for 500 employees working in a factory? What about 5,000? Or 50,000? Or a business person who makes decisions that affects billions of dollars in capital, and the livelihood and income of potentially thousands of people? In short, it's difficult to compare and different people will have very different views... but instead of not going through the exercise at all, I made some general assumptions and presented one point of view.

MBA Application Essay Strategy: Career Vision

2011-07-02T08:50:00.006-05:00

Without a doubt, the career vision essay is one of the hardest questions in any MBA application. Indeed, it’s a difficult question for any young professional to answer, but it’s especially so for military veterans. As military veterans, you have little-to-no experience in the private sector, and therefore seemingly little context with which to frame your vision. You’ve just begun to dip your toe into these waters, so how could you possibly know where you want to go and what you want to do? Perhaps a quick look at what veterans go on to do after business school will point you in the right direction. But I think you’ll find this exercise fruitless. Veterans go on to become consultants, bankers, private equity investors, entrepreneurs, and general managers...just like most other newly-minted MBAs. And telling the admissions board in your essay that you can’t wait to be a consultant isn’t going to earn you any extra points. So, is it even possible for veterans to provide believable answers to this question? In my opinion – YES, absolutely, but you need to approach it wisely. While HBS has dropped this traditional question from its required essays this year, the question is still implied in it's new essay (Why do you need an MBA?). Furthermore, most other top business schools are asking it in one form or another as well. And even if you don’t write about it in an essay, the question is bound to come up in an interview, so developing a well-laid strategy for tackling it will be well-worth your time. In this article, I’ll offer a few pieces of advice that will help you craft a winning answer to this vexing question.

The first mistake that many veterans make when answering this question is that they’re too specific in their answers. They essentially come up with a career roadmap. This is understandable since this is how we’ve been trained to think. If you were planning on making a career of the military, you could pretty clearly map out your next 25 years to include promotions, geographic moves, top-level schools, etc. But that’s not what these business schools are looking for. There are three problems with this approach. First, it’s just not believable – it’s very unlikely that as a veteran, you’ve got a firm enough grasp on all the career opportunities out there to know exactly what you’re going to do. Second, it reveals a lack of understanding of reality. In reality, a career roadmap is quickly rendered useless. No plan ever survives first-contact with the enemy, right? The same holds true for career paths following business school. And third, it’s just not very interesting. The admissions committee is reading thousands of essays and wants to be wowed. A too-specific career vision essay risks reading more like a snooze-inducing career manual than an attention-grabbing story.

The next common mistake that veterans make is that their answers can be far too vague. If the clearest takeaways the reader is able to draw out of your essay are along the lines of “this candidate wants to lead people,” or “this candidate wants to have an impact,” then your essay falls into this category of unconvincing ambiguity. These takeaways, in and of themselves, are not bad, but they only begin to scratch the surface of what’s needed. 99% of the applicants with whom you’ll be competing also want to be leaders who have impact. So if that’s all your essay communicates, then you haven’t done anything to separate yourself from the pack. Beyond that, a vague answer to this essay could indicate to the admissions committee that a few things could be true of you: you have no idea what your career vision is, you haven’t invested the time reflecting on the question, or you’ve just taken a stab in the dark at something that might be interesting to a reader but that you really have no interest in. Clearly, you don’t want to give the admissions committee, or anybody else, a reason to think these things of you, so do yourself a favor and don’t be vague.

So far, all of I’ve done is tell you what not to do. Don’t be too specific, and don’t be too vague. And you’re thinking that it sounds like there’s a very fine line to walk somewhere in the middle. You’re absolutely right, and that’s partly why it’s so hard to get into top business schools, regardless of who you are. But, now I’d like to offer a way to find that fine line.

The approach I’m proposing incorporates just three simple rules:

1. Be authentic: For this essay to be both believable and interesting, your answer must be authentic. It has to be sincere. Don’t fret over picking an industry to write about. Many veterans think they need to put their stake in the ground somewhere so they just choose something…like consumer package goods or renewable energy. In most cases, unless you can really make your case that you were made for these industries, picking an industry like this just won’t seem authentic. So start by reflecting on what you’re passionate about. What are you great at? What do you love doing? What activities really energize you? And when answering these questions, think about function before industry. The next step involves orienting your passions toward your career aspirations. Maybe you love working with a blank slate and creating something completely new, and thus you can’t wait to be an entrepreneur. Perhaps you relish the opportunity to develop and mentor people one-on-one, and therefore look forward to further honing your leadership abilities and investing in individuals as a general manager. And perhaps you do have an industry, say real estate, that you’re truly passionate about, and you’re clamoring to learn the art of the deal and develop your first property. These would all be a great start to developing your career vision. Whatever it is you end up deciding to write about, if you make sure it’s a real passion, and not some manufactured answer, then your essay will meet this first critical requirement of being authentic.

2. Talk about results: While it shows great ambition and confidence that you aspire to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, the admissions committee is much more interested in learning about what you’ll do as that CEO. What impact will you have? Other than the fulfillment of personal ambition, what will be the result of you reaching the pinnacle of corporate success? Think about the mission of the schools to which you’re applying. Take the mission of Harvard Business School as an example: “We educate leaders who make a difference in the world.” Focus on the last part of that statement. It doesn’t say “we educate leaders who rise to the top of their respective organizations.” So as you craft your response to this question, think about the difference that you’ll make. Translate your career vision into tangible results that the world and other people will feel, and you’ll be on the right track.

3. Connect the dots: Remember that this essay is but one piece of your candidacy and that it needs to make sense in the context of the rest of your story. While most of your application, including your other essays, will be a reflection of your past, who you are, and where you’ve been, this essay affords you a rare chance to talk about who you want to become, where you want to go, and what you aspire to accomplish with your life. The last thing you want is for this beautifully written essay to be floating out there on its own, so make sure that you’ve taken the time to link your vision with the rest of your story, both past and present. As the admissions committee reads your essay, they should think to themselves that the essay could only belong to you, because yours is the only puzzle into which this piece fits.

So, clearly, this is a tough essay to get right. In fact, according to conversations MilitaryToBusiness has had with admissions committees from several top schools, it’s the most common weakness with military members’ applications. But this doesn’t mean you should avoid the question and choose another that’s easier to answer. Try to view this question as an opportunity to shine and standout from the group. Just make sure you understand what it takes to nail this essay before you begin to attack it.

One final suggestion: before you begin brainstorming potential answers to this question, read a few of these HBS Portrait Project essays to get your creative juices flowing.

-Dave C., Guest Blogger and Senior Consultant with MilitaryToBusiness (bio)

Financing Business School

2011-06-25T20:14:00.009-05:00

As I’ve mentioned before, a business school education is, at its root level, an investment. Those looking to pursue an MBA do so because they believe that the long-term value of the education is far greater than the up-front cost. The problem is that the majority of us don’t have a couple hundred thousand dollars sitting in our bank accounts to do such a thing. How do we get past that?

Let’s start by digging into the “up-front cost” of an MBA. HBS recently released the Class of 2013 student budget which I’ve included below. This essentially represents the cost to attend HBS for one year (note that the cost for trips to China, Machu Picchu, and/or South Africa is not included). Basing our estimate on these figures alone, 2-years at business school could cost you anywhere from $165,000 - $230,000 depending on your family status. Certainly not an insignificant amount of money!

HBS MBA Class of 2013 Student Budget
	Single	Married/DP	Married/DP	Married/DP
	Single	Married/DP	w/ One Child	w/Two Children
Tuition	$51,200	$51,200	$51,200	$51,200
University Health Services Fee*	$1,186	$3,004	$3,806	$4,210
Blue Cross/Blue Shield (12 months)**	$1,834	$4,518	$6,068	$6,846
Program Support Fee***	$6,390	$6,390	$6,390	$6,390
Room & Utilities (9 months)	$10,800	$16,362	$21,114	$21,114
Board, Personal, Other (9 months)****	$12,590	$16,326	$20,822	$27,040
Total	$84,000	$97,800	$109,400	$116,800

Additionally, it’s also important to note that these cost figures do not include the opportunity cost of attending school (namely the 2-years of foregone salary from not working). For someone leaving the military as an O-3, you can essentially add another ~$150,000 to the mix. While $380K (230 + 150) is far less than the $4 million that Bloomberg Businessweek estimates as the 20-year median cash compensation of an HBS grad, it’s still a sizeable amount – especially for someone who has been earning a military paycheck for the past 3-5 years!

So you find yourself in somewhat of a dilemma: you see the potential benefits, but are also aware that you don’t have a couple hundred thousand dollars lying around to throw toward a business school education.

Fortunately, the path to business school for people in your situation is a well beaten one. There are a number of ways – both general and veteran-specific – to reduce the actual cost to you and, with it, the amount of anxiety with which you enter business school. What cannot be defrayed is either paid for out of pocket or with student loans. Let’s discuss each of those in turn before I briefly discuss how I financed my business school education.

Military Benefits, Fellowships, & Scholarships (funding that does not require repayment)

· Military “Sponsorship” – If you decide to stay in the military, one of the many benefits available to you is 100% graduate school financing. This is referred to as “company sponsorship” on the civilian side of the fence and is a widespread practice used to further develop an organization’s human capital. I had two HBS classmates who were sponsored by their respective branches of service (one Army, the other Navy) and attended school while still on active duty. They continued to receive their military salary and basic housing allowance and walked away from HBS with both a diploma and zero student loan debt. In the Army, this option becomes available to officers who have completed their branch qualifying assignment (usually a company/battery/troop command). Having a conversation with your branch or career manager is a great first step in determining if sponsorship is right for you.

· Post 9/11 GI Bill – This is a huge benefit for veterans who have served on active duty on or after 11 September 2001. As of 1 August 2011, the GI Bill will cover up to 100% of public school in-state tuition and fees, up to $17,500 annually for private schools, and will provide a basic housing allowance stipend at the E-5 with dependent rate (about $2200 a month for the HBS zip code). Depending on the number of months of non-contractually obligated service you have under your belt, your GI Bill benefits can range from 40% (90 – 179 days of Post 9/11 active service) to 100% (greater than 1,095 days, or 3 years, of post 9/11 active service) of the maximum benefit amount. What do I mean by “non-contractually obligated service”? If you graduated from a service academy, for example, you’re contractually obligated to serve 60 months on active duty in order to fulfill your service commitment. Any months served beyond those 60 counts toward GI Bill eligibility. The same logic applies to ROTC graduates. If you attended college on a 4-year ROTC scholarship, you likely graduated with a 48-month active duty service obligation. Therefore, any active duty service beyond those 48 months would be non-contractually obligated service and would count as eligible service for the GI Bill. (Though not yet updated with the new regulations that take effect August 1^st, the GI Bill benefits calculator can nonetheless be found here).

· Yellow Ribbon – Seeing as how most top-tier business schools are private institutions, and charge tuition and fees that (far) exceed the $17,500 private school ceiling discussed above, there is typically a gap between actual cost and what the veteran is eligible for with the GI Bill. The Yellow Ribbon Program exists to help close that gap. Schools choose whether to participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program and the rate at which they’re willing to contribute. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) then matches whatever the school contributes. Using HBS as an example:

o A veteran eligible for the maximum benefit rate under the GI Bill would receive $17,500 for tuition and fees as a result of Harvard being a private university.

o HBS, a Yellow Ribbon partner school, agrees to contribute $10,000 for up to 50 veterans each year (a list of the Yellow Ribbon partner programs and their contribution amounts can be found here).

o The VA matches HBS’s contribution of $10,000.

o The total benefit is thus $37,500, plus about $20,000 of BAH for the Boston/Cambridge zip code.

Though the annual cost to attend HBS for a year is a bit higher than the $57,500 benefit amount, the majority of the cost has been defrayed by the GI Bill/Yellow Ribbon contribution. Pretty phenomenal program if you ask me.

· Fellowships & Scholarships – Depending on the school, fellowships and scholarships are offered to students based on either need or merit, or a combination of the two. At HBS, all fellowships (pools of money available to students as a result of generous alumni donations) are entirely need based. These fellowships can range from a few thousand dollars to 100% of tuition. In addition to need based fellowships, other schools incorporate merit into their award criteria. At Wharton, for instance, students can receive full-tuition fellowships based solely on their outstanding record of academic, personal, and professional achievement. Finally, outside scholarships for which you qualify are fair game here as well. One that a few of my veteran classmates received was the Pat Tillman Military Scholarship. Definitely worth looking into.

Savings & Loans

Whatever is left over after military benefits, fellowships, and scholarships have been applied to the cost of your education is covered by you. Personal savings and family contributions are pretty self-explanatory. Graduate school loans, however, are a bit more intricate than they appear at first glance. These loans fall into two categories: GradPLUS and private loans

· GradPLUS – The GradPLUS loan is a loan from the federal government for individuals pursuing graduate education (as the name implies). It carries with it a fixed 7.9% interest rate and a 2.5% origination fee. Clearly the “fixed” nature of the loan is the most appealing aspect of the GradPLUS option. If you’re like me and expect serious inflation to take hold at some point in the near future (while I’m still repaying my student loans), the fixed rate is a pretty good deal.

· Private – During the glory days of 2004-2007, interest rates were extremely low and private loans, the soup du jour back then, were doled out in abundance. Today, they’re still available but are not nearly as ubiquitous. Although most private loans lack an origination fee, they carry with them a floating interest rate. Given the inflation discussion above, it’s definitely something to be aware of.

As for me, I ended up getting fellowship funding, received 40% GI Bill benefits for having served more than 90 days past my 5-year service obligation, and served in the National Guard throughout my 2-years at business school. So when it was all said and done, I walked away from HBS with about as much debt as I expected going in (~$120,000). Considering my family situation (married with two kids) and the fact that my wife stayed home with our daughter who was born a few months prior to business school, I’m pretty comfortable with that number.

As you continue to investigate the business school option, keep in mind that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the cost and become immediately turned off as a result. Hopefully this sheds a bit of light on how to make pursuing an expensive but worthwhile degree work for you.

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

"I'm getting out of the military in 2 or 3 years, and I think I want to go to b-school. What can I do now to prepare and make sure I'm competitive?"

2011-06-15T18:51:00.018-05:00

For those of you that are asking questions like this, congratulations! You’re already ahead of the curve. Our obligated service periods have a way of flying by, and before we know it, we’re staring our transition in the face without a solid plan. This situation is avoidable. Two to three years out from separation is, in my opinion, the right time to begin reflecting on your goals, assessing your options, and positioning yourself for success.

For veterans, and for that matter, most non-traditional applicants, the path to business school is certainly not unheard of, but it’s also not laid out before us nearly as clearly as it is for some other professionals, such as consultants and bankers. In those professions, the default assumption is that high-potential individuals will jump on the MBA train with many of their peers three to four years after undergrad. Furthermore, as they look upward through their chains of command, they have literally dozens, or even hundreds, of exceptionally talented MBAs to use as examples and mentors. This clearly isn’t the case in the military. We have plenty of potential mentors in the military, but the organizational assumption, or perhaps hope, is that top talent will make a career of the military, pursue major command, and maybe even a star. I don’t say all of this to diminish what an accomplishment it is for consultants and bankers to gain admission to top schools. I say it, rather, to draw the distinction between their process and ours. We simply have to be a little more creative, and sometimes more discreet, in how we pursue this path.

In this article, I’ll discuss the three main phases of preparing for this transition: Phase I - Reflect on Your Goals and Cast a Vision; Phase II - Assess Your Options; and Phase III -Position and Prepare. Additionally, I’ll lay out what I believe are the most useful and effective tactics and questions to ask within each phase.

Phase I – Reflect on Your Goals and Cast a Vision
This is the softest of the three phases, and it involves something that we don’t do a lot of in the military…reflecting. We’re more comfortable receiving a mission-type order and aggressively putting it into action. I cannot, however, overstate the importance of this phase. Before you dive headlong into the almost all-consuming process of business school applications, you must do your best to make sure this is the right path for you. Though there are many questions worth exploring in this phase, three rise to the surface as the most critical:

What is my career vision? You don’t need to get too specific here (i.e. don’t worry about industry), but you should at least try to provide the broad contours of your vision by answering the following questions:

>>Is business the best path for me? Or would other options such as law, government, or engineering be more attractive?

>>What kind of career trajectory am I looking for? Do I really want to take a shot at being a CEO someday?

>>What kind of lifestyle and work/life balance will I be comfortable with? Do I really want to find myself in a super-competitive environment where excelling professionally could entail travel and long hours? Or would I rather pursue something more low-key?
Is an MBA an important ingredient in my career vision? Business school is a great path, and it certainly opens up a range of new possibilities to many newly minted MBAs. But it may not be necessary for you depending on your vision and career goals. You may be able to jump squarely onto your ideal path straight out of the military, foregoing the two-year investment of time and money that top programs require. You may also conclude that an MBA is absolutely essential to your vision. Regardless of how you answer this question, you’ve made progress. You now have a little more clarity on how to proceed.
What type of MBA program is right for me? In today’s world, there are many different ways to get an MBA. For the purposes of this article, I’ll briefly discuss the two most common, and arguably the most useful, for veterans.

Full-time: The first is attending a full-time two-year MBA program. This option is the most intensive and for many veterans offers the most benefits. You’ll acquire entirely new skill sets; you'll gain invaluable knowledge about not only your future profession but also yourself; you’ll lay the foundation for a robust professional network beginning with your classmates and alumni of your school; you’ll have at your fingertips a range of resources and services such as career coaching and professional development; you’ll be able to take advantage of unique experiences and opportunities such as business plan competitions and global treks; and depending on which school you attend, you’ll have a variety of high-caliber firms and companies eager to make your acquaintance during recruiting season.

Part-time: Maybe the full-time option seems excessive and a part-time MBA is a better fit for you. For some people this is a fantastic option. In fact, if you land a job with the right company upon exiting the military, the company may have a program in place to put high-potential individuals like yourself through such a program…fully funded. Working full-time while you earn your MBA means a few things. You’re learning a great deal on the job, you’re instantly able to apply lessons from MBA courses to real world scenarios, you’re making money, and you’re building your reputation within your company and advancing your career at the same time.

As you can see, there’s a lot to consider in Phase I. It may take you anywhere between a few days and a few months to adequately explore and answer these questions for yourself, but I encourage you to take these questions quite seriously. If you give these questions their due diligence, and you ultimately determine that you’ll pursue a top MBA program, then I assure you that having already thought through these issues will serve you well when it comes time to start filling out applications.

Phase II – Assess your Options
For the purpose of the rest of this article, I’ll assume that after completing Phase I, you’ve decided that attending a top MBA program is your objective. This next phase, then, is all about getting smart on those programs, assessing your personal fit with each, and narrowing your list. In order to do that, I recommend doing the following:

Research school websites: It almost seems too obvious to mention, but you’d be surprised at how many people skip this. The fact is that most schools have put a plethora of valuable information on their sites that provides insight into everything from the school’s curriculum and culture to sample student profiles and data that will give you a sense of what it takes to be competitive.
Read MBA sites: There are too many MBA-related sites out there to read them all, but you should find a few that you like and begin to follow them regularly. In addition to our own blog, a few of our favorites here at MilitaryToBusiness are Poets & Quants, Clear Admit, and Stacy Blackman’s B-School Buzz. The benefit of these sites is that they serve as an unbiased third party. You’ll find articles and data on a variety of topics such as price comparisons of tuition for top schools, where graduates from each school end up in the job market, and how Stanford and Harvard stack up against each other.
Visit schools: Understandably, this could be difficult for a number of reasons, but if possible, visiting a school can give much deeper insight into what it would be like to be a student there. Meet and talk to students. Visit the admissions office and listen to an admissions brief. Visiting a school offers the added bonus of putting you on the admissions department’s radar screen…never a bad thing.
Reach out to current students: There are two good places to start when trying to contact current students. I recommend you begin by reaching out to the members of the schools’ veterans’ organizations. In my experience, because of the bond between fellow veterans, these are the most likely individuals to spend some time chatting with you. Most school sites have a public listing of their various student clubs and organizations, so check there first. If that doesn’t work for you, contact any current students who also attended your same undergrad. LinkedIn is the best way to find these connections. The bottom line is that it’s never too early to begin exploratory conversations to learn more about these schools, and current students offer a quick way to learn.
Network with alumni: Scour your current network to see if you can find an introduction to people who have graduated from the various MBA programs you’re interested in. It’s even better if you can find alumni who are also veterans. If you’re successful in making contact, in most cases they’ll be thrilled to talk to you. What you want to learn from these people is not necessarily what it’s like to go to school X, but rather, what it’s like to have graduated from school X. A sense of life after business school is an important insight to gain. Furthermore, these contacts can potentially serve as valuable resources in Phase III as well.

The objective of this phase is to gradually build a list of the schools to which you’d like to apply and to develop a strong understanding of what makes each school unique. Ideally, you'll begin this phase as soon as you feel confident with your answers from Phase I, but if you're struggling with the Phase I questions, then overlapping Phase I and Phase II just slightly may help you get off the fence. I should also say here that this phase really doesn’t end until you’ve completed the entire admissions process and have accepted an offer from a particular school. Up until that point, you should constantly be working to learn more about your schools in order to ascertain which one might be best for you.

Phase III – Position and Prepare
Finally, the phase that you’re all most eager to learn more about! So, what can you do now to get into your schools of choice? My apologies that you had to read about Phases I and II first, but I couldn’t in good conscience set it up any other way. Before I dive into the details here, it’s important to note that Phase III could and should run concurrently with Phase II. Many of the conversations that you’ll have with current students, for example, will not only help you learn about the school but will also give you insight into how to position and prepare yourself to be competitive…two distinct objectives that you’re pursuing simultaneously. So here they are, in order of importance, my recommendations for how to position and prepare yourself for top business schools when your transition is still two or three years away:

Excel at your job: This may not be what you expected to hear, but it’s absolutely essential. All of the top business schools will be looking for a pattern of excellence in each endeavor you’ve pursued. Your current job is your primary endeavor. Take on the most challenging assignments, push yourself beyond your comfort zone as a leader, and go after roles and responsibilities that you find meaningful so you can pour your heart into them. When it comes time to apply to your schools, the vast majority of what you’ll discuss in your resume, essays, and interviews will be related to what you’re doing right now. You’ll want to have something to talk about, and you’ll want to have done it exceptionally well. Beyond the impact your work performance has on your business school candidacy, you’ve still got plenty of time to make a big impact within and beyond your organization, so do your best and try not to get too distracted.
Crush the GMAT: The last thing you want to be worrying about two or three years from now when you’re applying to business school is either a GMAT score you’re uncomfortable with or no score at all. Take the time now to build a game plan to earn the score you want. To do this, start by reviewing your calendar and looking for the best 4 to 6-month stretch to prepare for and take the GMAT. Your calendar is likely full of things like workups and deployments, but the advantage of preparing early is that you should be able to find a relatively unbroken block of time in which to focus. For more strategy and tactics on defeating the GMAT, visit one of our previous posts here.
Assess and address the gaps in your arsenal: Your diligence in Phase II should give you a better picture of what it takes to be competitive for admission to your schools of choice. You should take the time to reflect on what you’ve learned and figure out where you’re coming up short. Every school is looking for something slightly different, but it’s safe to say that all schools are interested in candidates who are well-rounded and who excel at what they do. It’s this point of well-roundedness that often gives veterans trouble. After all, you’ve been exceedingly busy with pretty weighty responsibilities. Military life can be all-consuming, and if we’re not careful, that can be the only dimension that really shines through in our business school applications. So, start by thinking about what you’re currently involved in outside of your immediate job in the military. Do you do any volunteer or community service work? Are you involved with any non-profits? Have you written an opinion piece for your local newspaper? Do you have any hobbies or passions that you pursue? If the answer to all of these is “no,” and you can’t think of another way to demonstrate how multidimensional you are, then this is a gap you need to address. Pick something you care about or find interesting, carve out some time for it, and get involved. I think you’ll find that the benefits of rounding yourself out as a person extend far beyond your competitiveness as an applicant.
Time your exit: You need to consider your current schedule to depart active duty and then figure out if this timing is optimal for transitioning into business school. Separating from the military in May, for example, is far better than separating in November for obvious reasons. Since you’ve been diligent enough to start thinking through these issues so far in advance, you may be able to influence the timing of your exit to coincide nicely with potential matriculation dates. An extension is likely your easiest option. But depending on your circumstances and your service, there may be opportunities for early separation in order to pursue full-time education. Check with your personnel office on this one.
Disclose your intentions wisely: As we’ve already discussed, it’s not the most common or celebrated path for high-performing military officers to exit in order to pursue an MBA. So don’t be too quick to reveal your intentions. You certainly need to be honest and forthright at all times, but there’s absolutely no need to disclose your intentions before it’s required. Depending on your command climate, letting the cat out of the bag could impact the types of roles and responsibilities you find yourself in during your remaining service obligation. At some point your command will need to know your intentions so they can properly plan, at which time you may be reassigned. And in this case, that reassignment is entirely appropriate. The bottom line is that you should use your best judgment regarding when and how to make this announcement.

The last piece of advice that I’d give on this topic applies to all phases of this process. It’s simply this: don’t let this consume you. It’s so easy to get sucked into the MBA admissions vortex, and it’s really tough to get out of it. You’ll be sucked in soon enough once you get into the thick of your applications. Your work in the military right now is far too important to be neglected, and you still have time to accomplish a great deal. So, continue to do the amazing things you’re doing, look into a few of the things we’ve talked about today when your schedule allows, and when your transition rolls around, I’m confident you’ll be setup for success.

-Dave C., Guest Blogger and Senior Consultant with MilitaryToBusiness (bio)

“What are the pros and cons of serving in the National Guard or Reserves while in business school?”

2011-06-09T14:24:00.023-05:00

I get asked this question a lot, and thought that it might be valuable to offer my perspective on the matter during a time when many officers are in the process of deciding what to do after they leave active duty. As a bit of context, I’m currently serving in the Massachusetts Army National Guard and have done so for the past two years while also attending Harvard Business School. It’s a decision that I would make all over again if given the opportunity, but certainly one that has come with a number of tradeoffs. In what follows, I will list and discuss the key arguments for and against becoming a “weekend warrior” in hopes of helping you make a more informed decision.

Benefits
There are a number of reasons to consider joining the guard or reserves. The primary arguments for joining can largely be classified as a desire to continue serving in uniform, greater stability, and financial.

1. Desire to continue serving - This one almost doesn’t require further explanation, but I’ll throw in my two cents anyway. More likely than not, you’re extremely proud of your military service and grateful for having had the opportunity to develop as a leader while dedicating your time, talent, and efforts to a cause much greater than yourself. But you’re likely also looking forward to your upcoming transition to civilian life and may be wondering whether you’d be all that fulfilled by serving one weekend a month and two weeks a year. I’ll be the first to say that the level of satisfaction I feel from my time serving in the National Guard pales in comparison to that which I felt while serving on active duty. That said, after spending my days in the all-consuming “business school bubble”, it felt extremely refreshing at times to throw on my ACUs and spend time with military folks. I’ve also felt that serving in the National Guard has enabled me to ease into civilian life. As someone who has been affiliated with the Army for his entire adult life, the military was all that I knew and was what I was comfortable with. The National Guard was a way for me to stay connected with the military while also enabling me to pursue other endeavors in my life.

2. Greater stability – Believe it or not, the guard and reserves can provide you with much greater stability while at business school than the IRR. The vast majority of the officers leaving active duty with less than eight years of service do so with an individual ready reserve (IRR) commitment to their branch of service. This is due to the fact that, upon commissioning, all military officers agree to a military service obligation (MSO) of eight years, with some or potentially all of it served while on active duty. For officers who leave active duty before the eight year mark, the remaining time is served in the IRR. And as many of you well know, members of the IRR are subject to recall to active duty in a time of war or national emergency. Seeing as how the US is currently involved with two wars, being recalled while in business school is a very real possibility. Just ask my close friend and HBS sectionmate who received recall orders in November of our first year at business school, ordering him to Afghanistan as part of a Military Transition Team (MiTT). Let’s face it – it’s simply the nature of the beast. By joining the guard or reserves, your unit is authorized to grant you between 12 and 24-months of stabilization (state dependent), meaning that you are guaranteed to not be deployed during that time period. If the state in which your school is located offers 24-months of stabilization, you can complete your degree without having to worry about being recalled to deploy midway through. This was a huge plus in my eyes. Furthermore, as an incentive to join the guard or reserves while still on active duty, your guard/reserve recruiting counselor can offer an MSO reduction incentive which will cut your remaining service obligation in half. That means you could feasibly complete your military service obligation by the time you leave business school.

3. Financial – Though not nearly enough to cover your monthly expenses while in business school, the drill pay you receive each month certainly doesn’t hurt. I, for one, never quite got used to subsiding on not-yet hard earned money (i.e. student loan debt), so earning a little income from serving in the guard one weekend a month felt quite nice.

Tradeoffs
While there are a number of reasons to join the guard or reserves, doing so requires you to make a number of important tradeoffs, as I’ve mentioned. It should come as no surprise to you that the arguments against joining are primarily time related: less time for school, less time for the important people in your life, and less time for you.

1. Less time for school – Maybe it was just me, but I found business school to be a lot more academically intense than I had expected. Many of the concepts, particularly in finance, required that I spend additional time to comprehend them well enough to feel comfortable discussing them in front of my 93 exceptionally bright and accomplished sectionmates. I can recall a few drill weekends in particular (the ones with hours and hours of briefings) where I wanted nothing more than to spend my time reading and preparing cases so that I could be ready to go for class on Monday.

2. Less time for the important people in your life – This was a big one for me. As a husband and father of two, making time to spend with my family is extremely important. For me, I treated business school like a job, meaning that the weekends were my opportunity to spend quality time with my wife and kids. Drill weekends obviously reduced the amount of time I had to spend with them and required me to find ways to make up for lost time.

3. Less time for you – As I mentioned, business school was much more rigorous than I expected it to be. Time is your most precious commodity and anything that eats into what little free time you do have obviously has a ripple effect on your ability to devote time to your many duties and obligations. This, of course, pushes personal time even further back on the back burner. At this point, after serving a number of years in the military, we’re all used to putting ourselves last. But if you’re not careful, you will quickly find that you’re being led by your life and not the other way around.

While my National Guard commitment did in fact soak up some pretty valuable free time, I never found it unmanageable. If anything, it made me more efficient and better at managing my time even if was only out of sheer necessity. Thus, my overarching recommendation to you would be to make the decision of whether to join the guard or reserves based on how much you value the benefits of serving rather than how concerned you are with the tradeoffs you’ll have to make as a result.

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

"What should I do with my Pre-MBA Summer?"

2011-06-02T08:39:00.010-05:00

This is a question that a lot of you are asking regardless of where you are in the process. Some of you are starting business school in a few months. Others may be getting ready to apply to business school this fall. Still others may just be wondering how they’ll eventually make a smooth transition from the military to the private sector via business school. Regardless of which camp you’re in, your pre-MBA summer is a valuable time during which you can accomplish a variety of things. There are several major options that I’ll discuss here, and I’ll endeavor to lay out the merits of each. I’ll conclude with a few pointers that might be helpful whichever track you choose.

Timing: First, let’s talk about timing. We all know that in the military, this is an element of life over which we have limited control. If your service obligation requires that you stay in uniform right up until business school starts, then your decision for how you’ll spend your summer has already been largely made for you. While these other options may not be a possibility for you, you should at least be able to heed most of the advice/tips near the end of this article. And don’t worry – not having the summer off won’t hurt you once business school starts. Your learning curve may just be ever-so-slightly steeper than others in the first few weeks.

If you are able to influence the timing of your departure from the service, whether that be through an extension of a few months or through taking a big chunk of terminal leave, then I’d highly recommend that you consider your options wisely and make the most of this rare opportunity. The following are all different ways to maximize your summer:

Pre-MBA Internship: Your first option, and this is the one I pursued, is to find an interesting internship for a period of two to three months. The main objective here is to learn – to get your feet wet before you jump right into business school. Prior to my internship, I couldn’t tell you what a balance sheet was, much less walk you through one and tell you what it reveals about a business. But even just a couple months in the right business environment can give you basic skills like this and help you put into clearer context much of what you’ll learn and experience at business school. In my second year of business school, I still found myself drawing on experiences from my pre-MBA internship as I worked through cases and participated in class discussions. So this is an option that I highly recommend to anybody that’s able to make time for it.

You may be asking yourself how in the world you’ll find anybody looking to hire a pre-MBA intern. It’s not as hard as you might think. You’ve got at least two, maybe three, incredible networks at your fingertips that you need to start leveraging: military veterans in the marketplace, alumni from the business school to which you’re headed, and alumni from your undergrad (particularly Service Academies). Ideally, you’ll find somebody who fits into all three groups. I was fortunate to find a CEO of a medium-sized company in Boston who graduated from West Point (I graduated from Annapolis – close enough), served six years in the Army, and then graduated from HBS. His COO was a former Ranger and a Columbia MBA. These gentlemen were more than happy to talk to with me, even if only to pass along a few words of wisdom. When I asked for an internship, they didn’t hesitate. This truly had very little, if anything, to do with me, but rather had everything to do with the power of these networks. So begin tapping into them!

What kind of internship should you look for? I think the most important thing is that you find an environment where you can learn. You certainly want to work hard, produce good work, and add value, but there also needs to be an understanding that you’re there to learn. You could just as easily find this in a big company as you could in a small one. The most important thing is that the person you’ll be reporting to is interested in and supportive of your development. The most likely place to find this is with other veterans who have been through MBA programs. They’ll have a good understanding of what you need to learn over the summer so that you can hit the ground running once school starts, and they’ll tailor your projects accordingly. Furthermore, I wouldn’t worry too much about the industry. You’ll have the next two years and another summer internship to explore different industries in a targeted and methodical way. If you can find an internship in an industry that you think you’re excited about, then that’s great, but the most important thing is that you just get out there and gain some experience. In addition to your own personal development, an internship like this will also add a completely new dimension to your resume, which will only help once recruiting season begins.

One final thought on pre-MBA internships, compensation. It may be a good strategy to offer your services for free, especially since your primary objective is to learn, but in most cases you’ll get paid. For legal reasons that we don’t need to go into here, it’s very difficult for companies to pay you nothing. So an internship may also be the solution to the gap in your cash flow before the school loans and VA benefits hit your account.

Shadowing a Business Leader: For those of you who don’t have the time or the desire to do a full internship, this might be a better option, albeit one that won’t be nearly as robust. Using the same network discussed above as your primary source of opportunities, you may be able to find a business leader willing to spend a few days, or even a week, with you. Additionally, this individual may also provide you access to his or her team, affording you the opportunity to learn about the business from both functional and general management perspectives. I know a few veterans who have done this, and they all found the experience to be worthwhile. You certainly won’t learn as many practical skills as you would in a full internship, but it could provide you with an interesting perspective to draw from during business school. This path may also offer the added benefit of providing you with a professional mentor who’s invested in your success. This option, however, is likely unpaid.

Taking Classes: This isn’t a bad option, but I’m not sure it’s the best one either. Many business schools that have concerns about specific academic abilities of particular incoming students will require those students to take courses over the summer. Your school is also likely to require all students to complete some pre-course academic work in the areas of finance, accounting, and statistics. So, unless you’re extremely concerned about your academics, I recommend completing only what’s required of you by your school. This will more than likely be perfectly sufficient preparation for the coursework you’ll encounter in your first semester.

Stay on Active Duty and Maximize Finances: This option may be particularly attractive to Service Academy graduates looking to maximize their eligibility for the Post 9/11 GI Bill. If you’re able to extend your active duty time 90 days past your initial service obligation, you’ll be eligible for up to 40% of the benefits. This equates to roughly $15,000 in books and tuition and $20,000 in BAH over a two-year MBA program. Clearly, this isn’t enough to offset all of your MBA costs, but it’ll certainly help. Furthermore, if you’re able to take a good block of terminal leave, you may be able to combine this option with one or more of the others already discussed above.

Catching Your Breath: Regardless of which option you choose, I strongly recommend that you take the time to catch your breath and recharge your batteries before school starts. With today’s op-tempo, many of you haven’t taken a good break in years. You definitely deserve one. So take the opportunity while you have it, because once school begins, life will be fast and furious again. If you do an internship, try to schedule it to wrap up a few weeks before you matriculate. If you have a family, get them settled into your new city and spend some quality time together. If you have the means and the time, do some international travel. As service members, you’ve all been to some interesting places, (though usually not vacation destinations) but you’ll be blown away by the appetite your future classmates have for global travel. Up to a third of them are likely to come from abroad to begin with. So, adding an international adventure to your list of life experiences could contribute to an even richer two years at business school. The bottom line is that you need to do whatever is necessary to show up on day one of school with a full tank ready to go. It will feel like a sprint at times, but it’s really more of a marathon.

These are your primary options for your pre-MBA summer. I’m sure there are others, but most will take one, or some combination, of the paths above. So, in summary, the first step is to figure out how much control you have over the timing of your exit. The next step is to spend some time thinking hard about the objectives you’d like to accomplish during your summer. The third step is to lay out a course of action that fits both your timing and your objectives. And the fourth and final step is simply to execute.

Before I sign off, I want to leave you with a few pieces of advice applicable to all veterans preparing for an intensive MBA program. Regardless of how you choose to spend your summer, please seriously consider doing the following:

Read the Wall Street Journal daily: Your future classmates coming from the private sector speak a different language than the one we all speak in the military. A few months of reading the WSJ everyday will help tremendously. As you begin reading it, some of the content may not make sense, but stick with it and you’ll be far more knowledgeable about your new profession before long.
Set goals and priorities: It’s easy to become reactive, instead of proactive, at business school. People will fill your calendar for you if you let them. The best way to control your time and get the most out of your experience is to have confidence in the goals and priorities you’ve set for yourself. Take the time to write them down and refer back to them as you progress through your first year. Otherwise, they’ll be easy to forget in the overwhelming rush of activities.
Start networking: It’s not a popular thing in the military, but you need to try to get past this and recognize the merits of building a strong professional network. The best place to start is with veterans who have already graduated from your business school. Most of them will be very interested in your success and will want to keep in touch with you all the way through and beyond your MBA experience.
Learn about your classmates: Most schools will make available a database of your future classmates’ profiles at some point during the summer. Read up on them, and figure out who you’d like to meet. I had a classmate who showed up on the first day of class with a list of 50 “interesting people” he couldn’t wait to have coffee with. I thought this was awesome. Your classmates will truly be the best part of your MBA experience, so don’t waste any time getting to know them. In fact, if it’s practical, consider contacting some of them ahead of time if they’re in your city. It’s very possible you’ll be the first military or non-traditional classmate they’ve met, and they’ll be very interested in your story. Furthermore, the sooner you can start learning through the experiences of your classmates, the better.
Learn about your professors: You should have access to a faculty directory as well. Browse through it and see if there’s anybody you’d like to meet with at some point on campus. Professors can be great sources of advice and wisdom on everything from how to improve your class participation to how to assemble a board of directors for your startup.
Physical Training: One of my major regrets from the first year of business school is that I hardly made any time for PT. If it’s not in your routine before business school, it’s not likely to be in it once business school gets rolling…and if that’s the case, it’s really hard to get it back on your calendar. If it’s important to you, don’t wait until school starts to make it a priority again.
Complete pre-matriculation requirements early: As I’ve already stated, many schools will require you to complete some pre-coursework over the summer. Don’t wait until the last minute to knock this out. The tutorials required by HBS took me and most of my classmates 40+ hours to complete, and everybody who waited until the last week regretted it. Completing this work early may also highlight any potential weaknesses in time for you to adequately address them through other supplemental means.
Get your technology in order: Effective use of technology will be one important key to your productivity, time management, and efficiency in business school. Many of you and your classmates will show up to campus with a tablet, a smart-phone, and a lap-top. In order to maximize your effectiveness, make sure all three are set up and integrated with the school’s IT system. Frantically trouble-shooting your technology in the first week of school is a headache you don’t want to deal with.

-Dave C., Guest Blogger, HBS 2011

Where we are going next (Veterans of HBS Class of 2011)

2011-05-27T22:06:00.014-05:00

We didn't know each other when we started, but we moved forward with confidence and we quickly bonded. What was true for our general class was even more true for the veterans of the HBS Class of 2011.

Despite drastically different backgrounds; from Naval intelligence to Marine infantry, those of us from different corners of the military quickly united as we attempted to navigate through what to many of us was some of the most unknown terrain we had ever faced.

The uncertainty did not preclude success however, and our small group of veterans claimed two Baker Scholar Awards (awarded to top 5% of HBS) and several awards of Distinction, including one of the handful of Dean's Awards given to students who demonstrate exceptional leadership and contribution to the school while on campus. In short, the veteran community did not only do well, it thrived.

For those of you curious where the Class of 2011 veterans are heading, I've compiled the following data for you:

Industry/Function: The most popular destination is consulting, a favorite blogging topic of mine. Of those going to consulting, 4 are going to McKinsey, 2 to Bain, 1 to BCG, and 1 to Deloitte. There are also 8 going into finance, with 5 going into investment banking, 2 into investment management, and 1 directly into private equity. General Management, Bus/Corp Dev round out most of the others, while a few are breaking ground into their own niches in real estate and startups. One AFAA member is receiving $6m from a VC to start his own materials science company. Others are seeking similar funding to start other business, though the vast majority chose to pursue a traditional post-MBA position. In general, I think it's fair to say nearly everybody got exactly the industry and function they sought. See my previous post on "So What Does Business Mean Anyway ?" for a beginner's guide to the recruitment process.

Geography: While the industry/function is not completely out of alignment with the general HBS class, the geography is noticeably different. Across all of HBS, New York City is by far the most common destination for US citizens, while London tends to be the most common destination for international students, or at least it certainly appears that way. That is largely because those cities are the financials hubs for their respective continents, and more HBS students enter finance after business school than do their veteran counterparts. Our #1 location, Washington DC, is not too much of a surprise, considering the natural draw to political and government interest by those who served. San Francisco was a popular destination in general this year due to internet/tech jobs, and the military pool was no exception from the trend. Also in general, a lot more military end up in Southern cities such as Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas.

General Notes: It should be noted that those are are still in the "TBD" category are there by choice. One veteran turned down a position that would most likely pay over $300k/year and is seeking entrepreneurial ventures instead. In broader terms, I don't know anybody in my class who tried but did not receive a top job offer. However, given the wide array of options and tensions associated with all of them, it doesn't mean that students did not have plenty of anxiety about recruiting and which job would be their first civilian position.

Salary: I don't have official numbers, but I'll make approximations. I only do so not because it is something to boast about, but because I still hear from so many military veterans who are concerned about the financial implications of not having income for two years and question whether they can afford to go to business school. For one thing, the Post 9/11 GI Bill makes a huge dent in school costs, and second of all, a school like HBS simply pays for itself. The average total annual compensation (signing bonus, salary, annual bonus, etc.) the first year for my veteran peers is around $175k-$200k/year, and of course, it only goes up from there. That said, don't let the numbers fool you. For many, the job hours are brutal, the work only marginally fulfilling, and for quite a few us who previously led under the greatest of stakes, many would rather be at the point of the spear one last time. That said, nearly everyone is excited about what the future holds, how our careers will unfold, and we are unbelievably grateful for the opportunities that HBS has given us.

"I’m thinking of getting out of the military. What are my options?"

2011-05-25T09:34:00.014-05:00

Evaluating the options available to you outside the military can be a useful approach in determining whether exiting makes the most sense for you individually. However, before diving straight into such an evaluation, I’d strongly recommend that you take the time to understand what it is you’re hoping to find on the outside. You don’t necessarily have to “know what you want to be when you grow up” to know what sort of environment you generally thrive in, from where and how you derive meaning from your work, and how you hope to define work/life balance in the future. Maybe the answers to those questions suggest staying in the military. But regardless of the outcome, running through an analysis of that sort will help you evaluate all the options available to you in a meaningful manner, and will give you confidence in whatever decision you ultimately make.

While there are literally hundreds of things you could do with your life should you decide to exit the military (travel the world, live in a foreign country for a period of time, get involved in politics, etc.), I will focus on the two most prevalent options that military officers tend to pursue: going straight to work or going to graduate school.

Option 1: Get to work
For many military folks, this is the first option that comes to mind. You’ve gotten used to having a steady paycheck for some time, and the thought of that going away can be extremely unsettling. If going straight into the workforce is something you’re considering, evaluate all of the possible ways to do that before committing yourself to any one of them.

Recruiting Firm. More than likely, you’ve already been contacted by at least one of the recruiting firms that exist to help place junior military officers and accomplished NCOs with one of their partner companies. They are good at what they do and present their opportunities in a very compelling manner. I have plenty of friends who have worked with these firms and ended up very happy with both their companies and their initial positions. But do be aware that you are limiting yourself to the companies that your recruiter of choice serves. Furthermore, many of the locations for which these companies are hiring are not the most ideal. I’m not suggesting that these are inherently bad things, but they are what they are and you should be aware of them. JMO recruiters are a means to get onto a new and well defined career track; they are not necessarily a means for you to attain a specific career goal or always the best way to maximize your individual skill sets.

Individual Networked Search. For many who are considering career paths outside of those typically available through a recruiter, or who want a guarantee with regards to location or industry, an individual networked job search may be the best option. When I was in the Army, the word “networking” had a hugely negative connotation. However, getting out and talking to people who work at or know people who work at an organization you’re targeting should not be looked down upon. So long as you present yourself in a professional manner and go in with a plan, you could very well end up with the job you want in the city of your choice. LinkedIn and your undergrad alumni directory can be extremely useful tools in helping you get started down this path; however, my best advice is to reach out to veterans working at the organizations in which you’re interested. For people like us, the veteran network is probably the easiest way to gain an introduction or get one’s foot in the door. Veterans are literally everywhere and are almost always willing to make time for and help out other vets.

Entrepreneurial Venture. Have an idea? If yes, spend the time evaluating whether and how you should attempt to commercialize it. The crazy thing about good business ideas is that almost every single one of them is disguised in overalls and looks like work. Yet, the world is ripe with people who’ve been able to build wildly successful businesses without a fraction of the experience you have under your belt. With some research, a lot of networking, and an unyielding commitment to seeing it through, you could very well become a successful entrepreneur. Short on ideas? There are plenty of fantastic franchise opportunities out there that will enable you to also work for yourself. Everything from Subway Restaurants to CrossFit gyms are available should you be interested and convinced that a local market need exists.

Option 2: Go back to school
When I first started thinking about what to do after the Army, returning to school as a full-time student wasn’t even on my radar screen. Being married with (at the time) one child seemed to necessitate that I go out and get a job. However, there are significant advantages to investing in yourself by going back to school to earn a graduate degree.

First, graduate degrees tend to substantially widen the career opportunities available to you. The new body of knowledge you learn and the skills you develop while in grad school augment your leadership experience nicely and open doors that otherwise might remain closed (real estate, hedge funds, etc.).

Second, the pursuit of a graduate degree provides you with the time to really think about your future, experiment with different ideas, and assess multiple opportunities. In essence, it allows you to delay the big career decision while you gather more and better data.

Third, the two or three years spent back in school will allow you to dramatically expand your network. Developing friendships with talented, successful, and ambitious people can pay dividends in a number of ways throughout a career, and graduate school can certainly help you in building out that network.

Finally, compensation packages (base salary, bonuses, options, etc.) immediately out of top graduate programs tend to be much higher than what one could expect to receive in a corporate role right out of the military. This is due largely to the fact that the level at which you enter an organization out of grad school is higher than the level you’d enter coming straight out of the military. This also tends to have trajectory implications in terms of what roles you can likely attain within certain time frames.

But as I mentioned above, this option is at its root level an investment. Graduate degrees from top institutions are expensive, both in terms of real cost (tuition, living expenses, etc.) as well as opportunity cost (foregone salary for the 2-3 years while you’re in school). Thus, it’s important that you spend time considering the program and schools that will not only satisfy your personal goals and objectives, but will also provide you with a commensurate return on your collective investment (monetary, time, effort, etc.).
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In conclusion, you owe it to yourself to investigate each of your options with due diligence. While few things in capitalist societies are ever set in stone, the inertia required to make a dramatic mid-course career adjustment can be substantial. Getting it right the first time really is worth it.

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

Military To Business guest bloggers

2011-05-25T08:59:00.009-05:00

In order to remain a continued source of information for military and non-traditional potential MBA applicants, the Military To Business blog will introduce a series of guest bloggers who are either recent graduates or current MBA students at top schools.

The intent is to provide:

1) Timeless advice and information to those making difficult career decisions
2) Current and realistic insight on life at a top MBA program

Guest bloggers will be identified at the end of their article to help you keep track of your favorite authors. If you are interested in writing, you must be a current or recent MBA student with a public service background, and you can reach me at militarytobusiness (at) gmail.com.

The most important lesson HBS taught me

2011-05-11T19:49:00.001-05:00

Graduation is in two weeks and I miss it already. Something which I didn't expect to miss so strongly is the amazing energy of the place, because when you're there, you tend to just get used to it. Bumping into dozens of totally different and fascinating people every day, talking about starting companies, starting companies, planning overseas travel for next month and the month after, going through interviews, discussing important cases, reviewing life plans, playing sports in the afternoon, learning from world class professors, hanging out together at night, etc.... that is just an average day at HBS... and that is definitely not the "real world." It is something I miss, but life does have to go on, and we can't just be students forever; we have work to do and we have contributions to make.

"Reviewing" my experience at HBS is too difficult, but I will summarize what I think HBS teaches based on my 2 years here. HBS is more than just a transfer of knowledge from an institution to a student, and it's also more than a brand name on a resume. I would summarize what HBS provides in three broad categories (adapted from one of my favorite professors), in order of least importance to most important:

1. Knowledge, information, and techniques
2. A perspective and approach to problem solving and decision making
3. Values, attitudes, and beliefs

1. Knowledge, information, and techniques

This subject of learning overlaps with many other MBA programs. In fact, if one had the self-discipline, one could learn much of this by reading enough books and doing enough online training programs. This includes things like understanding how to analyze an industry, financial leverage, calculating net present value of revenue streams, techniques in marketing, the structure of a Board of Directors, as just a few examples among thousands. Among all the skills that HBS provides, this is probably the most fundamental, but also the least important. Most of us will only apply a very small percentage of this knowledge base in the first couple of years after school, and most of the rest will be forgotten or become obsolete. For those of you who are in the military, think of this as the equivalent of your entry level training... it's mostly replaced by different tactics and techniques once you get to your first unit, but it is still a good foundation to establish.

2. A perspective and approach to problem solving and decision making

After technical skills. the next most important element taught at HBS is how to approach and solve complex problems given limited information. This is equivalent to how new officers learn to be decisive, develop a bias for action, learn to step up in the critical moment, and feel comfortable being in command. Those skills are usually much more important than the nuances taught at basic training, and those are the skills which are critical to a life of success in the military.

Most of my HBS non-military peers were previously individual contributors only; they were never in charge of a unit... so the experience of learning to persuade others, to defend positions, and to just make decisions, was a previously underdeveloped skill set. Just like it is done in the military, these are things that develop best with repetitive person-to-person exercises, which at HBS is done 600 times over two years in 80 minute periods called the case method.

Former military people still greatly benefit from this as well though, for while most of us are not uncomfortable making decisions or defending points of view, we don't know how 1) to transfer our knowledge to a technical business environment and how 2) to do so in a diverse civilian environment. HBS is therefore outstanding for this purpose.

3. Values, attitudes, and beliefs

The most important element of the HBS education, in my opinion, is the values, attitudes, and beliefs it imparts on people who are receptive to it. To this end, non-military students benefit much more. Veterans are used to applying ethics in their decision making, understanding what it means to work towards a purpose beyond themselves, weighing conflicting moral dilemmas, etc. Many non-military classmates however have not been forced to think through many of those issues, so for that purpose, the HBS education imparts a tremendous sense of responsibility and judgment on students, or at least, those who are open to receive it.

What I would like to emphasize though is not the moral or ethical views that HBS imparts, but what may be the most important "value, attitude, and belief" that HBS imparted on me as an individual, even though I have never heard a single person explicitly say it...

I feel that I need to give a little bit of context though first; I grew up in a middle class family. My mother was a homemaker, and my father was an engineer. Although our house was in a neighborhood most people would consider very nice, it was 50 years old, had 1300 square feet, and one bathroom for the entire family. I didn't grow up poor, but I didn't grow up rich. I went to a public high school and I paid most of my own way through college. Nobody has ever pulled any strings for me to get into any school, nor any job, and I am very proud of that.

I have also always been very engaged in current affairs, in politics, in my general surroundings, and of those beyond. However, besides for my direct impact in the military, I tended to watch the news as an observer, not as an actor on the world's stage. I always thought the news was made by "those people" - people who's decisions have had a big impact on the world. People like George W. Bush, Jeff Immelt, Mitt Romney, and Michael Bloomberg. I picked those four as examples because they all attended HBS, and two of them came from very well established families, but two did not. I tend to believe that attending the school is a better indicator of success than one's family status.

The four people I listed as examples are people who have had a very significant impact on the world. They are part of "those people" I used to watch on the news. What I realized at HBS, was that "those people" were just my peers! So when I looked around, I realized I was one of those people as well. Of course, nothing changed about who I was, it was only my outlook that changed. It may make me sound naive, but for somebody who grew up in a middle income family and then served in the military, this view was a radical departure. To be clear, it is NOT a feeling of entitlement, for I have never been, and am still entitled to absolutely nothing. On the contrary, it is a feeling of responsibility and purpose.

Previously I could justify being an observer of world events...as somebody largely watching it unfold and mainly contributing through my direct and immediate role. Today I no longer have that excuse. HBS has given me the perspective, the tools, and the network to at least have as much of a shot of success in any endeavor as anybody else out there. If there is something I don't accomplish, I have nowhere else to look but at myself now. So while it was not explicitly said at the school, this is what I learned at Harvard Business School:

If there is something in the world which you don't like, either a gap, a void, or an injustice, whether it is a business opportunity, a political imbalance, or a social cause, YOU can go and change it, for if not you, then who?

You may or may not be successful, but the right thing to do is to try.

It is this self-realization and determination which has empowered our greatest leaders to achieve what they did. Although incredibly difficult, they didn't leave it to somebody else, and they didn't let others stop them from pursuing their goals, no matter how great of a challenge. My real lesson to you as the reader, is that this is obviously true for all of us... not just for a small group of HBS graduates. It only took myself, as a slow learner, an HBS education to believe it.

For all these reasons, HBS can put a tremendous amount of pressure on students to achieve... but for those of you who served in the military, the burden of leadership is far from a new concept. Whether you attend HBS or not, I hope you will find and pursue your calling in life.

To read more about my views about the complicated topic of one's purpose in life, read my previous post on "What do you believe in ?"

Best of Blogging

2011-05-08T17:28:00.004-05:00

Military To Business blog moved up this year from #6 to #3 in the Clear Admits' "Best of Blogging" rating and the blog was also awarded "Best Resource for Applicants." Thanks to everyone who voted.

Before I feel too good about myself, I have to remember that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence when he was approximately my age, so let's keep things in perspective.

I'm also happy (and sad) to report that my HBS career, at least work related, is over. I turned in my final paper last week. For my last three exams, I solved the macroeconomic problems of an African country, figured out how a retail chain can compete with Wal-Mart, and came up with a new financing structure for a major oil company... all in 15 hours. HBS definitely prepares its students to have answers for any given problem... now it's a question of how well we can put things into action.

Best of Blogging 2010-2011

2011-04-21T13:06:00.007-05:00

Click on the above to vote.

I'm pleased to report that this blog was once again selected as a Clear Admit's Best of Blogging nominee. Last year the blog ended up ranking 6th overall for student bloggers.

That's certainly nice feedback, and even more important is the positive feedback I've received from so many of the blog's readers... which has made this whole endeavor very worth while. As my time at business school draws to an end, I am exploring different ways to keep this site relevant and useful to future applicants. Some ideas include bringing in new bloggers to continue the tradition and post more experience for the readers. Stay tuned.

The last few weeks of class at HBS

2011-04-02T10:48:00.021-05:00

With less than a month of cases remaining for me at HBS, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on how some of my classmates are spending their precious remaining weeks:

1. Look for a job (maybe 15%)

There are generally three types of people still looking for work:

Some committed to finding a private equity, hedge fund, or niche market job (5%?)

Many people landed private equity and hedge fund jobs early in the year, but with hundreds of students competing for dozens of some of the most prestigious positions, the demand far outweighs the supply, and many are still holding out for a PE/HF position. Out of the same pool, some were willing to accept an investment banking job with the hopes of leaving it within 6-12 months to go to private equity. As I've reflected on in previous blogs, I have not met a single person in business school to date who actually wants to be an investment banker (yet about a quarter of the class goes into the field).

People looking for start-up opportunities (5%?)

Most, if not the best start-up opportunities come very late in the school year. Those looking for start-ups post-HBS cannot really recruit in the Fall because 1) the start up may not exist yet, 2) start-ups certainly can't forecast expensive hires over 6 months out, and 3) start-ups don't do a lot of formal recruiting outreach due to limited time and budget, so students have to go out and find them.

Students just looking for anything (5%?)

Some students either just haven't found that perfect position yet, or more often, just partied all year and now realize they have to actually reintegrate into the working world. So after partying every night for the last 8 months, they are starting to think about getting a job. Needless to say, these are not people who show a propensity for long term planning.

2. Conduct "last minute" networking

Students are having weekend brunches, weekday dinners, or mini-retreats with classmates they wish they had gotten to know better. Some students are also re-visiting past professors in order to help cement relationships. Basically, students are investing time in relationships that they would like to retain after we all graduate and head our separate ways.

3. Relax, reflect, and share

HBS has been an amazingly positive journey. Graduates from this school have learned a tremendous amount about business, leadership, values, life, and relationships. They deserve some time to relax and reflect on this amazing experience. It's unlikely that we will ever again be surrounded by such a large peer group of highly diverse individuals. People have not started to become overly nostalgic yet, but I can see it coming from a mile away! Students who are pleased with their choice of full time employment are the most relaxed of all; just enjoying their days, planning summer travel, and waiting for decent weather.

4. Express regret about their job choice

According to frequently quotes statistics, HBS students tend to change their job within the first year or two after graduation. Many students from last year's class have expressed to me how they hate their job and are looking toward radically different career tracks.

Students who accepted investment banking positions are rather open about how they are just doing it to "do their time" and move on, and some who accepted management consulting jobs are expressing second thoughts about their decision. Several who accepted consulting jobs from top firms are also looking at options to delay, defer, or even completely alter the terms of their employment to create space for alternate opportunities.

I hate to dime out an individual company, so I will keep it generic. I've observed that when students were mostly attracted to a company because of its brand and the certainty of financial stability, as opposed to the culture or the work itself, their loyalty seems to be bit thinner than at competitors. Now in the spring several of those same students are being exposed to some of the exact same entrepreneurial job opportunities that they would have after spending two additional years at these high end firms... and this creates a dilemma for many.

To be clear, there are many students are who going to really enjoy their consulting roles and consulting is a great fit for them. But it can be a difficult fit for those who want to lead, have significant responsibility, and immediately create change. Yet as I've discussed before, consulting is a great transition platform for former military to penetrate the business world, gain experience, credibility, and financial stability. So it really is a tough decision and a natural source of tension for many.

In general and not surprisingly, students who accepted a job offer in the fall because they wanted to spend their signing bonus over the winter holiday, not have to continue to recruit, and in general so that they "wouldn't have to worry about it" are the ones who are now not looking forward to starting their job. On the positive side, they tend to be very high paying jobs, so it can certainly be a lot worse!

If you're looking for more answers than questions, I've written two other articles on the subject:

So what about me?

Some have emailed to ask what my plans are. In general I am pursuing entrepreneurial tracks and I have several great options on the table but have not committed yet. I've been given the opportunity to run a small business, join an extremely high potential start-up, and I've also been offered funding to start my own venture.

HBS has given me many powerful skill sets; one of which is the ability to say "no" to amazing opportunities. My first year I wouldn't say no to anything. I would proactively explore every function and industry and accept any invitation to learn about opportunities - and I recommend this educational approach - especially for those who don't come from the private sector. My second year I narrowed down my choices and sought out more focused opportunities, but I would simultaneously never say no to a PE or VC firm for example if they reached out to me. A couple of weeks ago I had an extremely prestigious firm reach out to me to discuss a potential position. We were very quickly able to agree that it would not be a good fit for me and I was able to move on to other discussions without regret.

Before HBS I never would have even had these opportunities, and my first year at HBS I wouldn't have been able to know if I wanted to pursue them. But now after two years, I know myself well enough to have the confidence to not pursue every shiny ball that bounces in front of me. This frees me up to focus and pursue the best fit and use my time most productively. So HBS has not only given me the skills to succeed in whatever I pursue, it has also helped me prioritize and reduce the white noise of life. These are just a few of the many great things that HBS has given me.

HBS, Veterans, and where do veterans go after business school?

2011-03-13T20:39:00.019-05:00

HBS Military Prospective Students Day

This past Monday, March 7th 2011, HBS hosted its first ever Military Prospective Student Day. We had about 35 prosective students in attendance and they received a full day immersion in the HBS experience. The day included an introduction by Dee Leopold, class visits to observe the case method, a presentation by Career & Professional Development, a lunch mixer with current students, exclusive guest talks by distinguished AFAA alumni, a student run AFAA panel, a presentation by the AFAA, and an end of day mixer with current AFAA students and alumni from the area (with guests going back to HBS military veterans from 1971).

HBS's interest in military applicants

The intent of the day was to help answer questions and dispel myths about what it means for a veteran to attend HBS. By the end of the day most prospective students indicated how surprised they were that HBS had such a pro-veteran environment and how greatly their military experience was valued by the school and the students. It didn't hurt that all prospective students were given a complementary copy of the Harvard Business Review with the cover of "Leadership Lessons from the Military."

Most prospective students said this was the best experience they've had with any MBA program, and as a former prospective student myself, I know of no other school being this specifically proactive to attract the best and brightest of military candidates who have decided to pursue an MBA. I believe this reflects HBS's efforts to emphasize the leadership component of its mission statement: "To educate leaders who make a difference in the world."

If HBS continues this practice of holding Military Prospective Students Day, I would expect the number of visiting prospectives to grow quite rapidly as this opportunity becomes more well known within the services.

During the presentation from the HBS Career & Professional Development (CPD), employment data was presented to the prospective students showing where their military predecessors are going after HBS. The last full set of data available is from the Class of 2010, and CPD has agreed for this data to be posted here.

Where do veterans go after business school?

HBS military veteran graduation job selection by function

What we see in the above first of all, is that the two are not extremely different. Of the general class, 61% went into finance or consulting, while 62% of veterans went into finance or consulting. Within this category, veterans tended to go slightly more into consulting than finance (compared to peers), and 4% more went into general management... though one has to remember that 4% represents one person in the data set, so these figures are not to be taken as long term patterns. That said, I don't find these results surprising. Veterans tend to be slightly more interested in general management, and many find consulting to be a great way to gain the business experience (and credibility) before moving on to their follow-on industry of choice.

HBS military veteran graduation job selection by industry

The above industry breakout shows that veterans don't tend to enter "niche" industries as often (ie retail, real estate, healthcare), but rather stick to more generalized career options (ie consulting, finance, manufacturing). I believe this reflects the same career choices made for the first job function; most veterans are seeking positions to give them a broad business experience right out of school. I would certainly expect that after 5-10 years, many more HBS AFAA alumni are leading companies or departments in a very wide range of functions and industries.

Final Thought

Several prospective students told me that after the day's events, applying to HBS seemed much more achievable, whereas before they thought it was out of reach. While obviously applying to HBS is very difficult, and getting in is incredibly difficult no matter what one's background is (military or finance wizard), I hope that nobody who wants to come to HBS would ever self-select themselves out of the application process. If coming to HBS is your goal, you should pursue it to no end... the last reason you shouldn't come to HBS is because you didn't apply!

"Control your destiny or somebody else will" - Jack Welch.

How many military go to HBS?

2011-02-22T21:03:00.010-06:00

I've recently collected some data very closely approximating the level of veterans at HBS... basically membership numbers for the Armed Forces Alumni Association (the veteran club on campus) over the past decade or so. It shows that the average number per year (this includes a few non-US veterans) to be 40, with a range of 27-50. It's probably fair to assume about 4-6 of the veterans are from non-US militaries, often from conscripted services but not always.

Below is a chart of the AFAA strength since 2000:

If one was to look for meaning in the patterns though, it can be deceiving. For one thing, one has to look at the year of application (assuming the Fall of the year counts for round 1 and round 2, and thus the bulk of the applicants). If one therefore subtracts 3 years from the graduation year to look at the application year, the following is observed:

The fewest number of veterans were admitted in late 2002 (and early 2003). But what does this mean? Does this mean that fewer military people applied that year? Does that mean it was more competitive that year? Or perhaps it was less competitive because so few applied? Is the reverse true in 2003-2004 when the most were admitted? I don't think one can conclude any such position given just this information.

The data shows a mean of 40 with a standard deviation of 9. Most likely, the minor changes year to year are mostly random, and reinforces the fact that HBS does not have "hard" quotas.

Please also note that I don't have data on HBS class sizes going back all those years, so that could have a consequence if military numbers change with class size. To the best of my knowledge, HBS class sizes don't change very often.

This data may be interesting to provide historical context, but shouldn't be interpreted to mean much more than that.

Fiat Currency Default Risk

2011-02-05T23:54:00.030-06:00

This blog entry will be unlike my previous ones in that it will not be business school or military related, but rather be a specific discussion about gold and currency. This is a thesis I have developed over a while and have discussed enough times with people to warrant writing it for all to see. Please continue to read if you are interested in the US Dollar and gold and want to get a good beginner's guide as well as an introduction to a brand new concept (new to the best of my knowledge at least).

In this article I will first introduce a concept which I call "Fiat Currency Default Risk." The Fiat Currency Default Risk attempts to represent the implied global market sentiment as to the risk of US dollar default and collapse. I will follow this up with some basic context and background, and do so by addressing three questions:

What does the price of gold indicate about the rest of the economy?
Why is gold considered a storage of wealth?
Why has gold gone up so much in price, and what will happen next?

What does the price of gold indicate about the rest of the economy?

How much should gold cost? One gets very different answers from different people because of the way people treat gold. Gold costs a little under $500/oz to get it out of the ground, and it is mined to the tune of about 2500 tons a year, or around $100 billion worth, at today's market value. If one thought that gold was just a metal, and had commodity-like behavior (for example, like copper or iron ), then gold should only cost around $500/oz on the open market.

If however one hypothesizes that gold is not just a metal (like copper or iron), but rather has currency-like properties, then it is worth much more. But how much more? $1350 like today? Why not $1000? Why not $3000?

Before I answer this question, let's first address the issue of commodity-like behavior and currency-like behavior. A $100 US bill costs about six cents to print (or so I've heard). If treated like a pure commodity, a hundred dollar bill is therefore only worth six cents, because that is the amount of value that went into it. However, today of course it is not worth six cents, but 100 dollars. It has value which reflects its pure currency state. If the next day the US government announced that the US was changing its currency to the Peso, then a hundred dollar bill (and all bills) might fall down to six cents. Its value would shift from currency-like value, to commodity-like value.

I believe a very similar argument can be made about gold. The commodity end of the spectrum is relatively straight forward... if treated like copper or iron, it should cost around $500 based on how much it costs to produce. But now let's play a simple thought experiment. Let's pretend that the US dollar begins to become devalued at uncontrollable rates. Let's pretend that the US is on the verge of defaulting its debt. You may say that kind of thing could never happen here. It can only happen in places like Argentina and Greece, and maybe Spain, but never the United States. Ok, but let's just pretend for a moment that it's a non-zero probability. The dollar experiences high levels of inflation, people are spending cash like crazy because they don't know what it will be worth tomorrow, etc. They start to buy real assets because they don't have confidence in the dollar any more, therefore only accelerating the vicious cycle even further. What might the US government do?

One thing it could do to bring back monetary stability and social order is to announce that it will back all its currency with its gold reserve, the second largest gold reserve in the world, consisting of 8,133 metric tons. The fiat currency, at this point, will have come to a quick historical end.

What would gold be worth in this highly unlikely scenario? If that situation happened today, it would be $7350/oz. That is simply calculated by taking the US monetary base and dividing it by its gold reserve. The worst case today for the US dollar is for it to devalue to $7350/oz, because the government can always back it with gold at that point.

Is the above scenario likely? Probably not. However, stock and commodity valuations are not just priced based on the most likely binary outcomes, but inherently price in probability of the aggregate of all possible events. For example, BP was not likely to go bankrupt when it had the Gulf oil spill disaster in the summer of 2010, but as it became a decently possible outcome, its stock fell in half to reflect that possibility.

All of the above is captured in what I have coined as the FIAT CURRENCY DEFAULT RISK (FCDR). To the best of my knowledge, this ratio has not been put out in any other literature or analysis. The fiat currency default risk is calculated as follows:

Where "commodity price" reflects the average cost of mining gold, "market price" reflects the current sport price of gold, and the denominator reflects what the price of gold would be if the US decided to back the entire monetary base by its gold reserve, adjusted for the mining cost of gold. The ratio reflects how far into the disastrous scenario of total US dollar collapse the world market is implicitly pricing its probability.

Looking at today's numbers, we have ($1350 - $500) /($7350 - $500) = 12.4%

Let's test these numbers at the extremes to see if they make any sense. If gold was selling for $7350 today, then the Fiat Currency Risk Default would be 100%, which makes sense since we are already there and people are treating gold as pure currency. If gold were at $3925 today, it would mean the global markets implicitly price the Fiat Currency Default Risk at exactly 50%. If gold was $500 today, the FCDR would be 0%, since people are treating gold as a pure commodity.

The US eliminated the gold standard 40 years ago, and indeed if gold lost all of its potential for currency-like behavior, then why would anybody pay anything more than its commodity price? The answer is because there is inherent risk in everything, including total fiat currency collapse, no matter how small that probability is today, and the markets will reflect it.

Another benefit of using this measure is that it appropriately takes into account simple inflation. Let's say the monetary base increases by 2% a year, and the prices of everything increases at 2% a year, including gold and the cost of mining it... then the Fiat Currency Default Risk will not move, because the price of gold simply went up proportional to theoretical monetary base price adjusted to the gold reserves. For the Fiat Currency Risk Default number to actually move, it must reflect a movement of gold price closer to the currency-like value of gold faster than inflation, and a strong rational explanation for investors making this investment is reflected in their concerns about US fiat currency collapse. Not all investors may be explicitly thinking in these terms, but their behavior implies such concerns.

If anything, the numbers give us reason to worry less, not more. I calculated the FCDR for the year 2000, and while I don't have exact numbers on cost of mining, etc, I calculated a number around ~10%. This tell us that over the past decade the increase in the price of gold is mostly reflected in an expansive monetary base and a devalued dollar, not in investor panic based on a fear of currency collapse. However, given the central role that the US debt will play in the future, likely continued discussions about the status of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, and the price of gold, it may be wise to monitor the FCDR to differentiate the rising price of gold due to inflation (printing money) versus market sentiment that the US dollar is at risk at defaulting.

Note: I purposefully used the term Fiat CURRENCY Default Risk, vice Fiat DOLLAR Default Risk because if the US Dollar were ever to default, it's most likely that other fiat currencies such as the Euro will immediately follow suit. Given the central role that the USD plays in the world market, a default would likely reflect a global loss of confidence in paper money everywhere. If the Dollar goes down, so do all fiat currencies which have a floating exchange rate and exposure to free capital markets.

Now for some more background to those interested...

Why is gold even considered a storage of wealth?

Gold has a distinguishing set of characteristics which has led nearly all societies to adopt it as a storage of wealth. Many materials have some of the following traits, but it's difficult to find them all in one element:

Gold is rare: About 0.001 parts per million of the Earth's crust.
Gold is imperishable: It does not decay, rust, or degrade. A treasure chest full of gold sunk in salt water hundreds of years ago will be in as good shape today as the day it was lost.
Gold cannot be faked: It is denser than any other accessible metal except tungsten, so any metal which tries to pass off as gold can easily be detected by simply weighing it and comparing volumes. Unlike tungsten, gold is soft, so that risk is mitigated (it's why people used to bite gold). Any metal denser than gold is also more expensive than gold (ie Platinum). Gold is even nearly twice as dense as lead.
Gold is easily stored and transported: You can put it in your pocket or put it in a treasure chest and throw it on a ship. For permanent storage, you don't need any special conditions.
Gold is visually distinctive: While not 100% unique, it is far more distinctive than items such as lead or iron, or even silver, which a completely untrained eye can easily confuse. Few things in the world look like gold (when combined with its difficulty of being faked, this becomes powerful).
Gold is fungible: Its units are capable of mutual substitution. So your ounce of pure gold is the same as my ounce of pure gold, and I can combine them to form two ounces of pure gold which is the same and somebody else's two ounces of pure gold. This for example is not true for diamonds, in which every diamond is different and cannot be combined or divided without changing its intrinsic value.
Gold cannot be created or printed at will: Gold cannot be created by governments or the wealthy. It cannot be produced in a lab, although history has shown that certainly many have tried. This means that those holding gold can rest assured that their gold will not be reduced in value by the mass creation or printing of more gold.

From the beginning of agricultural civilization, humans have needed a means to store wealth. If you are a wheat farmer and you have surplus, you exchange (or sell) that surplus for something else. That is one fundamental way that one can accumulate wealth. However, what do you get in return? Corn? Livestock? At a certain point, you can't continue to accumulate "stuff" because "stuff" can go bad, and may need maintenance, and may rot, decay, or die off. So ancient society designated the notion of a currency - a material that is universally accepted as a storage of value. The fact that it is relatively easy for an untrained person to spot fake gold, that it is rare, and does not degrade, among the other reasons listed above, left it as a natural choice. Indeed, it was adopted nearly universally in all societies as a storage of wealth... so much so that it is virtually ingrained in the human collective unconscious.

Some may say that this is all silly. That gold is just a metal, and hence basically worthless. They would argue that it only has value assigned to it by society. I suppose those people would prefer to hold US dollars. I would ask the same people to apply the same test to modern currency. Is it not actually currency which is just paper, and only carries value because society assigns it that value? Does paper currency have any more intrinsic value than gold? Since paper currency is easy to print and is not rare, it can be argued that it is actually gold which carries more intrinsic value. The fact is that neither currency nor gold have any value unless people choose to assign it that value. The question is, which is a better permanent storage of wealth?

Why has gold gone up so much in price, and what will happen next?

In the last four years gold has gone up from around $625/oz to $1350/oz, more than doubling in price. A natural question is to ask why is gold so much more expensive? Does that mean it's going to come back down? What's driving all this? Why would anybody trade $1350 in cold cash for an ounce of a seemingly useless metal? What has changed to make gold worth so much more?

An interesting way to think about this is that gold did not go up in value, but rather, it just takes more dollars to buy the same amount of gold.

The above chart shows that historically it has taken around 100-300 ounces of gold to buy an average priced house in the US. This rule holds true in both deflationary (1930) as well as inflationary (1980) periods. Another item to look at is cars. The Model-T in 1925 cost around $240, or almost 12 ounces of gold. Today 12 ounces of gold coins will get you around $16,500... which seems like a fair price to pay for a regular car. Given all the changes in home styles and sizes, in car sophistication and improvements, about the same amount of gold is required to buy them during most economic cycles. This is because gold's is largely a permanent storage of value, whereas the dollar is subject to other variables, such as government printing. For this reason, I am fairly certain that 50 years from now, 12 ounces of gold will still buy the latest Ford model of 2061, whereas $16,500 will probably only buy you a paint job.

Here is a chart showing the US Monetary Base from 1984 through 2010:

The exact definition of monetary base is a bit more involved, but you can think of the monetary base as the amount of liquid money floating around in society. Sum up everything that people have in their wallets, in their bank accounts, and in bank holdings. By now you may have noticed the alarming spike in 2008 when the US significantly increased its monetary base by printing a ton of money... in fact, it doubled the amount of money available for circulation in order to prevent (or delay) economic collapse.

While the complete pros and cons of the government's decision to double the monetary base in 2008 is beyond the scope of this article, it may help give some insight as to why gold has gone up around 75% since 2008. It may not be that gold is worth that much more, it's just that there are twice as many dollars chasing the same amount of gold. The next logical question to ask is why isn't everything else twice as expensive. That is also a complicated question, and the short answer I put forward is that things simply have not had time to adjust. Much of the money introduced to flood the market in 2008 just hasn't hit the street yet; it's still in banks. Gold however, is traded by sophisticated traders in essentially efficient capital markets placing bets on the future price of everything. The same is not true for a dozen eggs for example. For this reason, some people see the price of gold as a more fundamental read on the devaluation of the US Dollar (versus the CPI for example). Complicating this is that the value of the US Dollar is a function of not only basic supply/demand of money, but of global psychology and perception. If you want to get out of the Dollar because it is being devalued, where else do you put your money? The Euro isn't doing so great and the Chinese Yuan is controlled by its government. For these reason, among others (see history of Bretton Woods and Reserve System for more background), the US Dollar is still perceived as the safest storage of value by most of the world. There is an increasing number of people however who consider gold as a potential alternative and hedge.

This is particularly true for a country which has so much debt and deficits that realistically, nobody every expects to pay it off... it is only a question of managing it for as long as we can. The US debt, in absolute terms, is virtually guaranteed never to be reduced. It's not that it cannot be resolved, but there is simply no political will for it today. The last time people began to flock to gold and away from the dollar, the US responded by confiscating gold and making it illegal to hold. This remained in effect until the 1970s when the US could no longer honor its foreign debt conversion into gold and abandoned the gold standard altogether.

Since 1971 we have had a purely fiat currency, meaning currency which is just paper and not backed by anything. When people say "the dollar is backed by the US government," what does that actually mean? The experiment in which the world's money is not backed by physical gold is a very recent development. In fact, the experiment is only 40 years old. Fiat currency is not destined to fail, but the assumption that it will continue indefinitely and successfully is far from a certain one. As long as the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency, and there are no viable alternatives, it will continue to hold much of its value. However, a hundred years ago the British Pound had the same role that the USD has today, and if 100 years ago one would have said that the sun would set on the Pound in just two decades, that person would most likely be considered a lunatic. The reality is that changes do occur in history, and the Dollar is in trouble. It's being sustained by its world reserve currency status, lack of alternatives, and the fact that so many other countries have bought into it so that a severe devaluation of the Dollar would hurt them as well. However, that is not enough to sustain it forever.

What will become of the US Dollar over the next few decades is still an open question and its destiny has not been determined. Nothing is inevitable. We must become both monetarily and fiscally responsible if this country is to reverse course. However, many believe that a shift away from the USD as the world's reserve currency is very likely to come... either slowly (like the Pound), or dramatically and suddenly (like the stock market crash of 1929 or 2008). Some people with these concerns are putting a portion of their money into gold because 1) gold is a storage of wealth which can't be devalued by the printing press and 2) in case of total monetary crises, the US or others may look to gold as a stabilizing force in some capacity. If the latter is true, it means that gold will once again be evoked by governments to restore stability and order, and gold's nominal value will reflect such an act. The world depended on gold for over 6000 of monetary order. We have only been using fiat currency for 40 years, which depends on the wisdom and discipline of our political leaders to act appropriately. We still have time to fix our monetary and fiscal problems, but it will take strong and principled leaders to do so.

A better way to do things...

2011-01-24T20:40:00.020-06:00

I had an amazing trip to India! We covered the country by air, train, bus, car, subway, shuttle, rickshaw, and foot. Definitely a trip I will never forget and one that forged some great friendships with fellow HBS students.

I took lots of pictures on the trip, and wanted to share this humorous chain of events I captured. I consider this to be symbolic of evolution... or of how productivity evolves into greater and smarter methods.

Step 1: Monkey gets 2L bottle of orange soda

Step 2: Monkey opens 2L bottle of orange soda

Step 3: Monkey tilts soda onto ground so as to spill it. Note, smaller monkey watches this unfolding.

Step 4: Bigger monkey drinks his spoils by sipping the soda from the grass. Efficiency... maybe 20% of the soda captured? But since he gets the full 2L to drink from, that's still a satisfying slurp!

Step 5: Smaller monkey, left thirsty, sips the drops left in the bottle cap. Then notices that a little bit of soda is left in the bottle due to the bigger monkey's inefficient drinking methods.

Step 6: Smaller monkey, who can't throw his weight around to get the drink in the first place, nor afford inefficiency in his habits, comes up with a better and more efficient way to drink. He finishes off what the bigger monkey treated as waste.

Step 7: Yea, I'm a small monkey, but so what? Don't act like you've never seen a monkey before. Don't you have something better to do?

What can we learn from this 7 step process?

People/monkeys/companies that are big and don't have to save every drop will tend to waste resources, have low efficiency, and stick with "if it's not broke - don't fix it" mentality.
People/monkeys/companies that are small and don't have the luxury of wasting resources, will find ways to innovate, find new solutions, and other means to increase efficiency.
It is limited resources in this world which drives us to improve ourselves. Never be satisfied with the old ways of doing business.

Start Ups at HBS

2010-12-28T21:08:00.015-06:00

While most (i.e. 99%) of HBS students don't start their own business coming out of business school, the school likes to publicize that about half of the HBS alumni at some point in their career get involved in a start-up, and about 5% may join a start-up after graduation.

The HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship is a great resource and the school in general provides many great resources for those interested in starting a business. While highly encouraged, it is seldom followed because 1) It's really really really hard, and 2) The opportunity cost of not accepting a job out of school is very significant. Many students claim that they are also burdened with debt and therefore cannot start a business, although I would say this is more of a way for somebody who is naturally risk averse to justify it to themselves. It's tough to walk away from a nice signing bonus and lucrative compensation with a prestigious firm in return for a mountain of debt, uncertain future, and a diet of ramen noodles.

There are of course students that make use of the resources offered at school, mostly mentorship and networking, and experiment with start-ups while still in school. These are often very low capital business ideas that students can use to experiment with and incur very little downside. If the business gains traction, the student can pursue venture capital or other ways to grow the business. Many of these businesses are built in conjunction with a "Field Study" structure sponsored by a professor, and therefore the students also receive course credit.

I'll list businesses started by classmates of mine in the Class of 2011. I'm not aware of an official master list anywhere, but these are businesses I have come across through personal discussions and meetings. There could be more, and I will keep a running list on the left column of this blog from here on out.

Class of 2011 start-ups (not complete list):

SaferTaxi - Helps rate, share, and schedule taxis
Athena Advantage - Provides personal security training my military special ops
Pushpins - Provides instant grocery store coupons through a smartphone app
FashionStake - A place to discover new fashion designers and to purchase from fashion collections
K+E Advisors - School admissions consulting
CleverBootz - Travel planning tools
KlickPlan - Group coupon discounts and event planning
Farm Builders - Provides long-term financing and agricultural management services to support tree crop farmers in West Africa
GobbleBus - An online bus hub for transportation planning
SenseCheck5 - Online users can sample new products/services for free or deep discount in exchange for their feedback
Crooster - Advanced survey designs

And of course...MilitrayToBusiness: Consulting Service for Top Performers

Some may be surprised by the breadth and variety of these businesses. Needless to say, it is not easy to start your own private equity fund or investment bank at business school, and the above (for the most part) represents relatively straightforward and low cost business models that students can build in between class and on weekends. Some are more developed than others... some are profitable and some are still building their site.... so please recognize that the above are works in progress.

I don't know how many businesses were launched last year, but I'm familiar with four that are still going:

Class of 2010 start-up survivors (not complete list):

TroopSwap - A private marketplace for US military personnel
LearnBoost - Tools and gradebooks for teachers
RelayRides - A neighbor-to-neighbor carsharing program
Birchbox - Delivers beauty sample products by mail

Business Plan Competition

In April of every year HBS hosts a business plan competition. While I wouldn't say it has been a great predictor of who might succeed or fail, it is a great showcase of ideas and more than anything encourages students to improve their business models and offers solid exposure and feedback. A list of past winners can be found here.

Where this leads to...

While some might, it's unlikely that many of the current Class of 2011 start-ups will lead to blockbuster businesses. They do however provide a great learning platform for entrepreneurs to refine their skills and undoubtedly many of those entrepreneurs will be at the forefront of new ventures in the years to come. When I think of successful start-ups by HBS grads in recent years, most were started after some post-MBA work experiences. Off the top of my head, these include companies like TheLadders.com, Care.com, Military.com, and Gilt Groupe. Gilt Groupe is a fashion clothing sample sale site launched in 2007, and now supposedly worth well over $500 million.

I hope this has helped shed some light on start-up opportunities at HBS, and I would guess similar articles could be written about other business schools.

And with that... I am about to board my plane to India. Good luck to all the round 2 applicants!

Post-9/11 GI Bill for MBAs Update

2010-12-27T10:18:00.010-06:00

The following Post-9/11 GI Bill Update was provided by John Kang, an active duty Army Captain. I haven't verified the data, but he has done a lot of work on this and details more of his methodology on his blog here.

John has taken my original calculations a step further (as well as updated them to reflect 2010 rates). He includes all tuition costs and income, including living expenses and expected internship pay (before taxes).

Taking the Yellow Ribbon Program into account (if you qualify), the results shows that many top schools offer a tuition free education for veterans, and taking BAH and summer internship pay, one can afford to pay for reasonable living expenses and most end up with anywhere from only $10k to $50k total debt after two years. This is pretty good considering one is not working, includes living expenses for two years, and a top MBA degree.

This reinforces the message I tell a lot of people who write in and are concerned with losing their steady military income. Fear no more. The economics of a military person going to a top business school is extremely favorable. You can make more your first 3-4 years after business school than you probably would in the military over the next 10 years. Whether you want to change occupations though and take that job is a totally different question and I am by no means saying it makes sense for everyone to go business school. I'm just saying that from a purely economic point of view, it is a highly net positive financial decision.

End of semester.. and some thoughts on consulting

2010-12-19T17:38:00.031-06:00

Only one more semester to go...it's a cliche... but I have to say "I can't believe it's nearly over." Last year I discussed what HBS students do over the winter break. This year is of course no exception. Most students are traveling, and mainly overseas.

I'm going to India for almost three weeks with three sectionmates. Despite India having a population of over a billion people, I have no doubt that I will be running into other random HBS students on a regular basis. I don't know how many HBS students are going to India, but it's probably in the hundreds, and everyone tends to go to the same sites. It's interesting to see that many HBS students take a vacationing interest in countries perceived to have the hottest growing global economies: India, China, and Brazil. I take it as a positive sign for the global interest of people here and would be curious to see a study of trends in HBS overseas travel. I wonder if there would be any sort of correlation with GDP growth, and whether it is a leading or a lagging indicator.

I also want to share some interesting articles I've read recently. One is from an HBS 2010 graduate who posted some really interesting statistics on the top employers of HBS graduates and particularly insightful numbers on management consulting hires over time at HBS. For the actual statistics, you should check out the InsideHBS.com blog.

Another really interesting blog is Our Consulting Problem, a case of a Kellogg/HBS husband and wife team who decide to quit their management consulting jobs and do something completely different with their lives. The subject of whether one with little prior business experience "needs" consulting after business school and whether the option value generated is worth the time invested is a topic of regular discussion here (or at least with my circle of friends). Anyway, the essay on Option Value is both funny and highly descriptive.

I recently spoke with a very senior partner at a management consulting firm who is also an HBS grad. His firm had given me a full time offer and we were chatting about how I was thinking about the decision. Perhaps because I am considering such starkly different options, that I am also willing to be very open and transparent about it. He claims that he enjoys his work so much, that he was "shocked" when I told him that relatively few HBS grads going into consulting do so with passion for the business. About the only thing HBS students are less passionate about than consulting is doing investment banking, so it is very ironic those are the top two most common jobs coming out of HBS. These truths may be rarely discussed outside of business school, but they are readily recognized from within. Perhaps people who enter those businesses eventually learn to like it or change their outlooks; I'm not the person to speak about that.

Everyone is always speaking of finding their "passion." The catch is of course, that nobody can find his or her passion by searching the web or reading books, not any more than one can fall in love by simply searching dating sites or looking at magazines. All this leads to some very dynamic forces; heavy pressure to achieve great things and change the world, while at the same time dealing with short-term forces that challenge our better judgments about ourselves. I suppose these dynamics will never change for those of lucky enough to attend this school, so in that regards, HBS is a good place to practice!

Relatively few people come to HBS because they genuinely want to be a consultant or an investment banker, yet the overwhelming forces here places most people either in those positions or on the edge of them. It is a very difficult force to fight. Some of us are still hanging in there.

It's all about execution...

2010-12-13T16:09:00.012-06:00

Whether it’s a class on strategy, management, or even global trade, the phrase “it’s all about execution” is an often spoken phrase in the HBS classroom. The basic concept is simple enough to understand; one can have a great plan or idea, but unless it’s implemented properly, it won’t lead to the desired results.

Coming from the military, it was intuitively difficult for me to understand why this was such a common place problem in the business world. This is partly because execution is something that most military officers know how to do quite well. It is such a commonplace skill, that I never saw it as a skill. While I certainly understood the theoretical challenges that businesses faced when executing a plan, I admit that for a while I didn’t understand the fundamental nature of the problem.

Let's say that a company has a challenge it wants to overcome. Perhaps they need to fix an internal problem, or perhaps they want to take action to reach a new goal. Execution might simply mean that the organization puts into action what they already know they need to do, and one might think that putting the plan into action shouldn’t necessarily be the most difficult part of the whole operation. In trying to understand the fundamentals of this problem, I thought of an analogy that made the human nature component extremely simple to understand: think about the process of getting into shape and losing weight.

A person may realize that they are not living a healthy lifestyle. They’ve gained weight and aren’t happy with their situation. That person makes a strategic decision to get in shape. They then may hire personal consultants and seek out advisors on how to do this. These personal fitness consultants will come in, analyze the client’s challenges and goals, and prescribe an operational plan to reach the desired goals. So it turns out that coming up with the strategy and operational plans was actually the easy part. More often than not, like losing weight, business problems are not entirely original, and coming up with the theoretical solution is not necessarily the hard part.

The person now knows where he wants to be, and knows how to get there. But for most people, the act of going to the gym, of changing their diet, and of sticking to a plan, is simply beyond many people's ability to sustain. Some people fail to execute the plan despite desperately wanting to get in shape, and companies are no different, because companies after all, are made up of people who also suffer from the same challenges. Knowing what to do is often the easy part, doing it is the hard part. We see this in every aspect of our lives. A company may change the language of their sales policy or put up different mottos in the same way a person may get subscriptions to health magazines and put up motivational posters, but changing the language of a company’s strategy won’t lead to execution success anymore than having a fitness magazine on the coffee table will lead to losing weight. It’s all about execution.

In my view, execution comes from discipline. I define discipline as doing what you know you need to do, when you need to do it, irrelevant of any external distractions, excuses, or obstacles. The ability to do this was a foregone conclusion in my previous unit; I never realized what an edge it could give to military people in the business world.

Execution is often much more difficult than strategic thinking or operational planning. A former military person that has the discipline to execute, the leadership skills to lead and motivate, and the vision to think strategically, can truly be a business force to be reckoned with. I have met quite a few highly impressive people at HBS who fall in this category. Discipline and execution can be your personal edge as well... it's a more uncommon skills than one may think.

Veterans Day Celebration at HBS

2010-11-14T11:08:00.033-06:00

This past Thursday (Nov 11, 2010) the HBS Armed Forces Alumni Association (AFAA), a student club, held its annual Veterans Day celebration on campus. We had about 400 students, family, faculty, and friends show up for the event, which highlighted two outstanding keynote speakers: David Gergen and Senator Scott Brown.

Veterans mostly wore their dress blues and we also opened up the event to students of MIT, the Kennedy School of Government, and members of the Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization. An introductory slideshow showed HBS students what their veteran classmates did while in the military, and the event also featured tributes to all services, a static display of military equipment and gear, a POW/MIA presentation, a presentation of the colors by a local ROTC unit, the playing of the national anthem, a USMC birthday cake cutting ceremony, a bagpiper, student remarks, and of course, an open bar and appetizers served to all. An after-hours party followed in Harvard Square.

This annual event definitely marks one of the highlights of my time at HBS, and many members of the AFAA put a lot of hard work into making it a success, marking the highest profile event that the veterans club on campus holds every year. The purpose of the event is both to celebrate and recognize the service of veterans at HBS, and also to create an inclusive environment for the HBS community to learn more about their veteran classmates and the experiences they bring.

Our guests were presented with AFAA club T-shirts, which have the words "West Point of Capitalism" on the front. The club t-shirts are in high demand on campus, and are sold in the spring to students as part of the AFAA charity drive raising money for the New England Center for Homeless Veterans (last year we raised over $10,000).

A few more pictures from the event:

Military Prospective Student Day at HBS

2010-10-18T15:38:00.026-05:00

The cover of the latest Harvard Business Review has a picture of soldiers and the front page title:

"Leadership Lessons from the Military - Extreme Conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq have become a testing ground for adaptive management skills that every CEO should understand."

Much like WWII, although to a lesser degree, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are shaping many of America's future leaders. Outstanding military leaders routinely distinguish themselves in business, and the nine years of continuous fighting has produced a massive talent pool of confident leaders who have been through the test. Business schools have known this for a long time, and continue to place emphasis on getting the right kind of veterans in their classrooms. However, just because somebody worked at a bank doesn't make them a good financier, and just because somebody served in the military doesn't make them a good leader. Business schools are looking for much more than just experience - they are looking at the complete person - just as they do for every industry. In this arena, HBS has been making a particularly noteworthy effort...

I'm therefore pleased to promote HBS's newly created Military Prospective Student Day, which is scheduled on the HBS campus for Monday, March 7th, 2011. This is a forward thinking event run by HBS to reach out to prospective military applicants and I strongly suggest you contact the admissions office if you would like to participate. This will also give them a better idea on the number of people to plan for. If you have any recommendations for the event, feel free to write in to me as well and I will consolidate and pass along. Either way, stay tuned for more information.

Lastly, I'm also pleased to announce that this blog recently surpassed 20,000 hits and about 10,000 unique visitors since launching in April of 2009. That's about the same number of applicants that HBS has had over the same time period. Looking at statisitcs of repeat readership is also really interesting, as it shows that 480 visitors have returned to the site over 200 times, and that around 3,000 visitors have returned over 25 times. The original intent of the blog was to serve as a source of information and insight to prospective students and all those contemplating career changes, so I'm glad to that the blog has been useful to so many. Military To Business has also been read in 128 countries representing over 42,000 pageviews.

Brand equity vs. personal equity

2010-10-02T18:49:00.007-05:00

This week I officially turned down Goldman Sachs’ full time offer. As an HBS student with no prior business experience who has turned down offers from both McKinsey (summer) and from Goldman Sachs (full time), and is left with no offers on the table, many of my classmates would probably wonder about my mental state. To help explain my highly questionable thinking, I’ve come up with a framework for career decisions: building brand equity versus personal equity.

During my summer job search, many people recommended that I seek out firms with high “brand equity” – Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, etc. By placing those names on your resume you all but guarantee that future employers will find you highly desirable and they also buy great option value. Therefore, in addition to being tremendous learning environments, those firms on your resume buy you great name recognition, or “brand equity.” However, brand equity makes one desirable because of the places one worked, not necessarily for his truly independent personal value. If hired after a few years from one of those firms, one is hired as “that McKinsey consultant” or as “that Goldman banker.” Not usually as “that guy who accomplished XYZ.” The equity one accumulates while working at those firms is therefore very strong brand equity. It’s the same thing that is accomplished by going to a great undergraduate school, or by attending Harvard Business School; great name recognition on the resume, and a tremendous learning experience.

At some point in one’s career however, one begins to develop personal equity. At places like McKinsey and Goldman, that might take place after 7-10 years, when you begin to serve as a thought leader and create client relationships based on who you are, not based solely of who you work for. A partner at those types of firms has very slowly built up credibility and unique individual skills, and others want to do business with that person at least partly for who he is as an individual. For the first 5 years or so in one of those firms however, one is mostly known for the name of his firm, and his commoditized (but highly desirable) skill sets.

So how does one build personal equity? One builds personal equity by creating value mostly through his or her personal accomplishments, not just through the wagon he's decided to hitch himself to. Most MBA students transition to this role after several years of building brand equity at a larger firm – which is extremely reasonable and indeed highly recommended. By going to a larger firm first, you build brand equity and a good fallback position. You also have the privilege of learning under the supervision of great managers and savvy business leaders, all while developing your own style and skills in a relatively low risk environment. This is therefore a highly attractive option and certainly not one I would discourage by any means.

Perhaps however, it is because I’m a little older than most of my peers, or perhaps it is because I’ve inadvertently spent my whole life building brand equity and feel that the opportunity of adding more is only marginal – that I feel ready to build personal equity coming out of HBS. I’m ready to build and create value by the sheer will of my individual hands and mind, not simply by serving as additional leverage for a larger business. I eagerly await the day where my accomplishments will be limited by my own personal ability, and not by my job description.

One way to apply this philosophy is to do something entrepreneurial, which is a much riskier path to pursue. There might be no safety net, and the average expected economic value becomes both lower and the range much larger (in both the upside and downside). This second year at HBS is therefore going to be no easy sailing.

I am encouraged however, by the fact that the accomplishments I am most proud of in my life have all come through struggle, challenge, and uncertainty. I’ve never regretted pursuing the path less traveled, and I measure my success by the fulfillment of the journey, not by the ultimate destination. In the end, all we have is one extremely short life – you might as well live it the way you want to.

That last year in school: 18th grade

2010-09-05T15:28:00.015-05:00

We've all experienced the ups and downs of "back-to-school" moments in our lives. The fun of catching up with friends that we haven't seen all summer, the curiosity of figuring out what our new classes and professors will be like, and the sinking reality of daily homework.

In all likelihood, I have just finished the last back-to-school week of my life, and doing so at Harvard Business School is not a bad place to finish things out. I found out I made first year honors, I got my official full time offer from the summer, and got to catch up with people who have been doing and continue to do incredibly impressive things with their lives.

A common conversation people are having, besides how fantastic the weather is right now, is who is signing for full time positions and returning to their summer employer and who is not. Many summer employers are offering nice signing bonuses, and in the face of increasing student loans, most offers are very attractive. The feeling of being able to sign onto a job, have some cash in one's pocket, a guaranteed income stream to pay off loans, and perhaps best of all, the peace of mind of not having to go through recruiting the second year, are some extremely compelling reasons to take a full time position early. An even better reason is if you have found the ideal employer for post-HBS. Regardless of the motivation, the question of "have you signed" and "are you going back to XYZ" is as common of a question as "what did you do before business school" was a year ago. It seems that some people have found a great employment fit, some people just don't want to deal with recruiting again, and of course, many others are in between.

While I have some great potential employment options, I've decided I'm going to explore the job market a little further. I am constantly viewing things with two schools of thought:

Take a position which has incredibly career enhancing potential, brand reputation, and great compensation, but is not necessarily something I would be extremely excited to do.
Take a position which I would love much more, but has ill-defined career progression, possibly much lower pay, and more questionable long term benefit.

The idea with the first option of course is that you buy optionality, gain skill sets and credibility, and can later catapult to what you "really want to do." The idea of the second option is that although it doesn't have as much of a defined career progression, prestige, or compensation, if you always do what you love doing, you will be more successful and opportunities will just work themselves out. Ideally, one's passions are aligned between both tracks, but that is certainly a rarity.

Many people have emailed asking how my summer went, and there is a ton I could write about my experience at Goldman Sachs and BCG. Both are great firms, both provide opportunities for amazing careers, and both are a great fit for the right person. They may or may not be the right fit for you, and they may or may not be the right fit for me. The latter is a question that I have decided to take some time to continue to reflect on.

For the time being, I am comfortable dealing with the uncertainty, and taking more time to reflect on career choices. It means a little more stress my second year, but not a bad dilemma to have all things considered.

MBA Admissions Consulting for Non-Traditional Applicants

2010-08-29T14:38:00.026-05:00

I never intended to monetize anything when I set this blog up, but by the shear volume of emails I receive, it's obvious that there are a lot of military and non-traditional candidates who are hungry for information about the business world, and Harvard Business School in particular. If you fall in these categories, and are still interested in help, shoot me an email and we'll try to work something out that is appropriate to your situation.

My strengths:

Helping junior military officers and non-traditional candidates
Particularly helping people figure out when is the best time to apply, which schools to apply to, and how to handle the career transition
How to position yourself (essays, letters of rec, academics, resume, etc.)
Perhaps most importantly, how to translate your non-business experience in a way that admissions committees can understand and appreciate
I've also helped many discuss career decisions beyond Harvard Business School. If you think I can help, just write in with some details of what you need...

militarytobusiness@gmail.com

If you're not looking for admissions advice but just want to chat about military careers or something in general, feel free to drop me a line as well, though I can't guarantee to reply to everyone. I also suggest reading the previous advice I've put on this blog regarding admissions:

Good luck to everyone out there! We all make our own luck.

The Harvard Age Curve - Part II

2010-08-25T21:09:00.019-05:00

Last year I published an article about the age of matriculating students for the Class of 2010 at HBS versus other schools. Dee Leopold recently published new data on the HBS admissions blog for the Class of 2012 as follows:

Since I got a lot of positive feedback after my last article, I decided to briefly revisit the topic given this new information.

I'll make the same assumption I made last time, which is that students on average graduate from undergrad at age 22; the numbers who graduate later probably roughly balance those that graduate earlier. I then subtracted a year to calculate the approximate age at time of application (average time from application to matriculation is around 9 months). Comparing the two data sets show little change:

The data compares class sizes of 900 and 909, so I normalized the data and made the followng observations in the difference between the two years:

Age group 23 and under: Down 23 students
Age group 24-26: Up 29 students
Age group 27-29: Up 17 students
Age group 30 and over: Down 5 students
Overall mean age change: from 24.9 up to 25.1

Don't forget this is age at time of application. It means that the average HBS grad is 28 years old. While the age average technically went up slightly, it's not a very significant difference. More significant is the slight drop in students with under 2 years of work experience, which looks like it got absorbed by those with 3-5 years of experience. Although I would emphasize that these are very small percentages changes and it's very likely that none of the slight differences are intentional.

For those wondering about the best time to apply, let's look at percentage of students matriculating by age groups at time of application:

Age 23 and younger: 10%
Age 24-26: 78%
Age 27-29: 12%
Age 30+: 1%

The numbers definitely speak for themselves and probably don't need any added insight. I will say that over my year at HBS I have come to form an extreme respect for the institution and its methods. There are certainly those that question the age skew at Harvard, and I think it's always worth discussing, but I will say that after a year at HBS, I have come to give them a high degree of trust. They've been the best at what they do for a long time!

HBS Military Class of 2012

2010-08-25T20:17:00.000-05:00

While I'm on the subject of discussing admit demographics, I'll also follow up on the post I made last year regarding the military Class of 2011 at HBS.

HBS has made a very genuine effort to provide active duty military personnel the opportunity to attend and succeed at HBS. The new HBS Class Co-President is former military, and military personnel continue to be regarded in very high regard on campus. It's definitely our responsibility not to take that for granted and to continue to earn that respect by contributing to the Harvard community and upholding its long tradition of excellence.

In addition to increasing the GI Bill Yellow Ribbon package to $10k/year (matched by the VA for a total of $20k), the Class of 2012 also shows a 19% increase in former active duty US military personnel.

At 4-5% of the total class, HBS has taken a leading position among the top MBA programs as a school that places a premium on military experience.

I'll note that there were also three foreign military personnel from non-compulsory service nations to be admitted as well (2x Britain, 1x Greece). There are also at least three women matriculating from the military, compared to none in Class of 2011 and two in the Class of 2010.

So it looks like soldiers and sailors really increased their game this year, and unfortunately I won't be around HBS next year to report on the Class of 2013, so this will have to be the best information out there for a while.

Note: As usual, I'll clarify that my data is not from admissions and is therefore not necessarily perfect and is definitely not official. It is however very close.

Dealing with uncertainty

2010-08-02T21:02:00.035-05:00

One of the most important lessons I learned my first year at HBS is that uncertainty is not a bad thing - uncertainty means options. The day you have no uncertainty in your life is the day you have no more choice. The more one can embrace this concept and manage rather than avoid uncertainty, the easier it will be to excel, albeit in a more uncertain direction.

Uncertainty can be very scary in the same sense that the unknown tends to be scary. It's so scary that we put a lot of effort to eliminate it from our lives by pursuing stability and safety. We like to know where our current career and relationships are taking us and where our lives will generally lead. We pay a cost for this certainty however - we severely limit our potential.

Upon arriving at HBS, my options in life opened up like I had never imagined. Although most everyone around me was in the same overwhelming situation, the constant talk about changing the world or becoming the CEO of this or that company in 10 or 20 years left me constantly wondering where I will be in 10 or 20 years. Will I be good enough?

I didn't have a problem picking goals, I had the problem of too many goals. Too many lives I wished to lead. Too many things I wished to do. Ultimately I have to make decisions in a specific direction, and I really didn't like the uncertainty of it all - let alone the chance of failure.

That all abruptly changed with a simple and random thought experiment. I imagined Bill Clinton on January 21st, 2001. At 54 years old, the man had served two terms as President of the United States, and arguably still had at least 30+ full years of life ahead of him. I tried to imagine what was going through his mind when he took his last flight on Marine One from the White House. The dishonor of his impeachment, and his entire legacy as the first two term Democratic President since FDR must certainly have been on his mind. Would he be remembered for his sex scandal? For his failures? Or would he be remembered for economic prosperity? For his triumphs? Would he live the life of a respected statesman, or as a vilified and impeached President? His future must have seemed extremely uncertain at age 54. Where does he go from here?

Whether one likes Bill Clinton or not is not the point; he certainly accomplished an amazing amount by his mid-50s... and if a two term President can be completely uncertain about his future and his legacy, it would be ok for me to feel uncertain about my future as well.

I could become the CEO of a Fortune 50 company and my next 20 years could still be just as uncertain as they are today. The only way they won't be is if I stop dreaming of what could be. In other words, I accepted that uncertainty does not lessen with achievement, it actually grows.

The future is cloudy and difficult to see through. A person fearful of change and uncertainty will therefore take one step at a time, feeling the ground beneath him with every step, reaching out with his hands to feel the way. The person who embraces the fog will take calculated but intelligent decisions and run forward into the unknown. History is shaped by the men and women who leap into the unknown and don't slow down to feel the ground with every step. We may get bruised and fall along the way, but that is the means of all great progress. Just make sure you are heading in the right direction!

What's in a career?

2010-07-24T10:04:00.022-05:00

As I contemplate different career paths, my thoughts routinely shift from big picture ideas to very tactical decisions. On the big picture front, I've come to think of private sector careers falling generally under three broad categories in which someone:

Under-consumes, lives beneath one's means for a while, and goes into personal debt to start a business.
Accepts capital from investors, gives up some control, and partners up to start a business.
Works for somebody else who did one of the first two.

The vast majority of people follow the third option. The choices generally correlate from the highest risk, highest reward, and highest level of control, to lowest risk, lowest reward, and least amount of control.

If successful, they also tend to correlate with how much value one creates in society, and how much reward one is given for creating that value. For example, Michael Dell created much more value for society by starting his own business at age 19 offering low-cost computers to people, compared to the 50,000th employee to join Dell. Even if that 50,000th employee is a thousand times more talented than Michael Dell, that employee gets practically none of the high reward that the founder enjoys. Additionally, unlike Michael Dell, who can exercise ultimate control over the business, the 50,000th employee gets practically none, but in return is given a much more stable and less risky career path.

While maybe not thinking precisely in the terms I outlined above, many people at business schools wonder what kind of business person they are. A higher-risk, higher-reward, creator of major value? Or a lower-risk, lower-reward, member of an existing apparatus that contributes by creating incremental value? Many try to position themselves in the middle by joining a small firm, trying to tap into some of the upside potential of a start-up while still enjoying more relative stability than an entrepreneur.

It can be argued that top notch MBAs are needed in all these business segments in order to make the whole system flow... including being the providers of capital in option #2. The main question is, what is the best fit for your personality?

Let the summer begin...

2010-05-20T23:12:00.015-05:00

I wish I could take more time to write about some of the great experiences here... I'm writing them down as I go and will hopefully have more opportunities to share them with you. This post will be more of an update than any great insight.

We had our last final exam yesterday which concluded a 5 day period of 5 hour exams each day. My section had an end-of-year-dinner at a local Cambridge restaurant (which hosted about 70 of us), and then most of us went on to party the night away with about 300 other HBSers at a Boston club. These kinds of big Boston parties were a relatively routine occurrence during the school year, but I generally didn't leave Cambridge on weeknights. I felt however that finishing the last final and our amazing first year warranted a little bit of an extra celebration. What a great way to finish off the year! I feel very close to my section and am so grateful to have met so many wonderful people here. I really underestimated the value of the "section experience" when I first applied to HBS. It's been integral to my entire experience.

Tomorrow I fly to Israel for a student led 10 day tour with 80+ of my first year classmates (that's about 9% of the class). Another large group is doing a Japan student led trek, and other students are going home for a week or two before starting their internships. Some students are even starting their summer internship next week so they can have their vacation on the back end. Summer break is 14 weeks and most internships are 10 weeks, though some (like myself) are doing two internships. I have 2 weeks off on the front end, then 12 weeks at Goldman and BCG that will take me straight into my second year.

I hope to continue updating the blog over the summer with more lessons from HBS. For those of you who have emailed with questions... I will do my best to get to everyone. Thank you for the great feedback.

Let the summer begin!

Cost of one minute at HBS

2010-05-11T17:42:00.024-05:00

Today was my last day of first year cases at HBS and we begin our finals on Thursday. There are so many takeaways to write about, it's difficult to know where to begin and I doubt I will even scratch the surface. It's been an incredible year.

One of the skills many students learn and/or improve thanks to the case method is oral communication since half of one's class grade is based on class participation. There are about 30 cases per course, and the average student speaks every other case per class, so around 15 comments per semester for each student per class (though it probably varies from 10-20).

This means that the professor determines half of your grade on an average of 15 comments over the period of 3.5 months. That's not an incredibly deep well of information to help differentiate 94 highly talented students. It's for this reason that oral communication is so important. One must learn to briefly and persuasively speak in front of a crowd if he or she is to excel. Most class comments last under a minute, and more often they are only a few sentences. I therefore think this is an excellent laboratory to hone persuasive public speaking, and I firmly believe this is a key skill for business leaders. Even if one is great at giving public speeches, knowing how to inject 30 seconds of persuasive wisdom in the proper context is a different story and a different challenge. Preparation can also only go so far, because to be effective, one has to comment "in the flow" of the discussion, and it's difficult to really prepare for all permutations of arguments that will emerge. A terrible comment is one that was brilliantly prepared the night before and presented totally out of context of the comment preceding it.

Another way to analyze how important one can take his/her class comments is to compute how much other people are paying to hear you speak.

HBS Class of 2012 tuition is $48,600. There are approximately 30 cases per course, and 10 courses in the first year, so 300 total cases. Assuming that the entire tuition goes towards a pure learning environment, that means we pay $48,600/330 or $162 per case. This doesn't include $4,850 in support fees which goes toward buying the physical cases themselves and other support material.

Much of the value of being at HBS is captured outside of the classroom through networking, recruiting, and the lifetime value of brand itself. However, let's make the extreme assumption for a moment that all of the tuition cost is captured in its entirety during the actual HBS class hours. Each case is taught for exactly 80 minutes, so one pays roughly $2 for every minute of an HBS class. There are 94 students in my section, so if you decide to speak for one minute, other students are effectively paying $186 for every minute to hear you speak. When I presented this analysis to some of my classmates at the start of the year, they began taking their comments much more seriously.

One of my personal lessons was that if you have 5 minutes of absolutely fantastic points to make, and you only have 2 minutes to do it in, you shouldn't give the same 5 minute speech but at 2.5x speed. Similarly if you only have 1 minute, one shouldn't simply cut out half the speech and rush as much as possible into one minute. One has to tailor all of his comments to fit the format (length) and obviously the audience. One may feel like he has 3-4 amazingly brilliant points to make to support an argument, but he can actually be more persuasive if instead of rushing through them he makes a single overarching comment that captures the greatest impact. Students have to sometimes get over the desire to "hear themselves talk" in order to actually be more effective.

This is indeed an art form. The case method is therefore one of the highlights of my HBS experience thus far.

HBS Learning Teams: Then and Now

2010-05-02T10:08:00.017-05:00

It's 7:25am when I walk on campus; a thousand determined students wearing backpacks and carrying a coffee mug are darting back and forth seamlessly crossing each others' path. They are all heading to their learning teams to review the day's cases. There is only an hour before the first class of the day.

I arrive precisely at 7:30am to meet with my learning team. We've secured a coveted room in Spangler Hall thanks to our assigned team member who arrived at 6:50am to squat and stake learning team 122's morning place of study. I see the dejected look on the faces of other teams who only sent a squatting representative to arrive at 7:15 or 7:20am, and could not secure a study room. Those poor teams will be relegated to hold their study session in the noisy cafeteria, or the first random set of steps they find. Real estate at 7:30am at HBS has a lot more demand than supply.

That was the scene in September, the first month of the school year. It is in stark contrast to April.

Now I still arrive precisely at 7:30am, but as I walk on campus I sometimes wonder if there is a holiday I was not aware of. I'll see an occasional squirrel dart across the grass, or a maintenance worker pull up to the parking lot. Occasionally I'll even see another student from the across the field. We look at each other with an immediate feeling of understanding, as though we are the last human survivors in an apocalyptic movie scene.

I walk into Spangler Hall and up the stairs to the study rooms. I pass one cold dark room after another, heading to the beacon of light emerging from our study room's semi-translucent door; finally a sign of life. I'm usually not the first member of the team there, nor am I ever the last, and I'm generally always on time. We chat for a few minutes about our previous evening, and then crack open our notes and engage in a great discussion about the day's cases. Our discussions can become quite passionate and we usually extend past 60 minutes, leading us to rush to our individual classes at 8:35am for our 8:40am class start. We bid each other goodbye "...have a great day. I'll see you tomorrow!"

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Confused by what I'm talking about? Let me briefly fill you in. HBS assigns semi-randomly chosen 6 students from across different sections to form a "learning team." Every first year student is assigned to a learning team in the same fashion. The idea of the learning team is to build a support structure, a safety net, and to enhance the learning process. Learning teams meet for an hour before class starts to review the cases of the day. HBS provides opportunities to discuss how to best go about spending this hour, but ultimately every team decides for themselves how to run their meetings. Furthermore, these teams are not mandatory, so students only attend for as long as they desire. They are also free to leave one team for another.

At the beginning of the year students are a little stressed out about their cases and classes, and feel like they will be disadvantaged by not meeting with their team. Practically everyone starts with a serious intent to maximize their experience. Within a few weeks though, it's no longer necessary to arrive at Spangler early to secure a study room. Learning teams still meet, but real estate supply meets demand. By the end of the first semester, and for a variety of reasons, many learning teams disband. This process continues throughout the second semester, especially during the internship recruiting period, to the present point in which the number of learning teams meeting probably represents single digit percentages of the student population.

Why does this happen? I think for any number of different reasons:

It's easier to sleep in another hour when you're out partying until 1-2am
You've become comfortable enough reading cases that you feel adequately prepared to handle the class without the benefit of peer discussion
Inter-personal problem among team members
People in your learning team are not at your level of commitment, and you don't want to feed "freeloaders"

One of the silliest reasons I've heard someone justify learning team break-ups is "I simply don't have time for it anymore. I'm too busy!" I think this is awkward because I would say the reverse "I can't afford not to come to my learning team. It saves me so much time!" Indeed, if a 60 minute learning team which starts at 7:30am doesn't save you over 60 minutes of preparation time the night before, I too wouldn't come to my learning team. I didn't continue to attend my learning team out of some transcendental or spiritual obligation, but because we acted as an effective unit, each benefiting from the other more than we put into the process. I was able to study much more efficiently the day prior, knowing that I would have an hour to discuss the cases the following morning.

In general, teams with voluntary participation can only hold together if each person receives more out of the team than he or she puts in. It's a simple balance of interests in life. A well functioning team will output more for its participants than the sum of the inputs, but this often takes a deliberate and coordinated effort. I'm therefore very grateful my team was able to achieve this early on. I believe it certainly enhanced my overall first year experience at HBS.