Retired Navy, ~41 yrs old, seeking realistic feedback
Enlisted in 2007, commissioned in 2017, expecting to retire 2027/2028. BS Finance from Southern New Hampshire Univ with 3.8 GPA earned while active duty. Have not taken the GMAT but am actively studying. Married with 2 kids, currently 10 and 7. I am fit and in excellent health, regularly pull 60 hour weeks. Rarely the smartest person in the room but I will study, practice longer and work harder to outperform my competition.
20+ years of soft skill development. Have traveled the world, fluent English, conversational Italian and Romanian. Tons of leadership and project management experience under my belt.
No finance experience outside managing standard budgets as well as my own personal finances.
Aiming for acceptance into a T15 MBA program and then somewhere in finance where I am honestly not set on anything in particular - it is all fascinating to me. Seeking honest feedback, opinions, advice, personal anecdotes etc. I aim high but I am also not delusional (I don't think)!
Congrats on hitting 20! Im in the reserves, did H/S, and have been in finance my whole career. Your plan makes sense to go for MBA especially if you’ll have it paid for. It’s a good way to integrate and to figure out what’s next. if you get a 700+ GMAT you’ll likely get M7 given your undergrad GPA.
You will for sure be one of the oldest in the class. Typically most people even vets are 5 years out of undergrad. The older vets are typically 10 years because they were pilots—so you’ll have 5+ years on them. Not to scare you away, just to set expectations.
As far as recruiting, I’ll leave it to you for whether you truly want to do IB, which is the most likely finance path, at your age. Putting up with that kind of grind is really best suited for a fresh undergrad with 0 going on in his personal life. Not a wife and two kids. Good news is that’s an overrated field anyways and pretty lame. If I were you, I would go and look into a search fund if interested in running your own business, operator roles, defense tech, etc. All of these I think would be more exciting, you’d have more applicable skills, better for your situation, etc.
Not to yuck your yum if you really want finance. I think the question would be 1) do I really want to do finance and why? 2) what kind of finance could I place into (likely IB) and 3) do I really want to do that kind of finance? Unfortunately we missed the golden age for finance I think
Similar age here. I'm curious if you have spoken to any MBA adcoms yet? Some of them may try to steer you towards EMBA based on your age and tenure. May be worth it to visit a conference to survey some programs if you haven't decided what to target yet. GMAC MBA Tour and MBA Veterans Network conferences are coming up soon.
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