Mr. Nuclear Submarine Officer

Hi Mr. Nuclear Submarine Officer,
Impressive credentials and awards! This is Debbie Choy from mbaMission and GSB alum. Congrats on a decorated career in the Navy! I think you have a lot of strengths in your profile – apart from your top performance as a Navy officer, you also have a solid academic track record (GPA, GRE), and demonstrated leadership skills at work and in your extracurriculars. As you put together your applications, AdCom will want to know why MBA? Why now? Be sure to explain what specific skills you want to learn at business school to get to your future goals in defense tech. You would also want to be specific as to what niche you’re interested in at these firms that you want to join, and what transferable skills you can contribute. Beyond that, consider peeling back the onion to share your stories and experiences that have shaped you as a leader and team player. If you can dig deep and really show Adcom the person that you are, I think you’d have a strong shot at GSB. Wishing you the best in your MBA journey!

Hi Mr. Nuclear Submarine Offier, Melisa here from Stratus Admissions. First, thank you for your service. I have family and friends who have served on subs (through ROTC not the Academy) and can appreciate the vastness of your responsibilities in Operations. Your strong stats, leadership, community involvement and awards make you a very attractive candidate. While you should definitely explore opportunities while at business school, it is important that you have thought through your short and long term goals. And for Stanford specifically, what big impact do you want to have. I think your skills will set you up nicely for a program or project manager in a tech company. Where I’d push you to go deeper is what next? What opportunities do you see in these industries? And how do your unique set of skills combined with an MBA help make you successful to impact those opportunities? What is driving you to make a difference in tech/energy/defense? Since Stanford is the most competitive program to get into – your solid profile will help you get looked at, but a compelling story is what will make you stand out. This is where I’d want to dig further because I think there are threads that could connect in any of these areas: Cert. Nuc Eng to energy; new tech for briefings to tech; military experience to defense. I think your chances are above average for each of the programs with a compelling story. Wish you the best of luck and reach out if I can answer any questions.