Can This Ex-Air Force Officer-Turned-Software Engineer Crack The MBA Code?

After an eight-year military career in the U.S. Air Force, David earned his undergraduate degree in computer science online from the University of Maryland. He killed it, racking up a GPA of 3.9 and used his education to transition into civilian life with a job as a senior software engineer for Lockheed Martin.

Two years into that plum job, David is looking to build on his engineering skills with an MBA degree. This first generation American, who enlisted in the military at the age of 19, scored an impressive 740 on the GMAT in his first try. He brings considerable leadership experience to the game, having led military units for eight years and having served his country for seven of those years in Afganistan, Germany, Iran, Japan, and Turkey.

The 33-year-old engineer is targeting a group of highly selective MBA programs: Stanford, Wharton, Chicago Booth, Berkeley Haas, and the MIT Fellows program.

In this Fridays with Sandy episode, HBSGuru.com founder Sandy Kreisberg handicaps his odds of getting into his target schools as well as Harvard Business School. Find out why Sandy is pretty optimistic about David, setting his odds at Harvard Business School at 30% and at Stanford, the most highly selective prestige MBA program in the world, at 25% to 30%.

If you would like to be featured in an episode of Fridays with Sandy, submit your profile for a handicapping session here. 

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