Active duty military transition to S&T

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this if you do, I am currently deployed and do not have the time to monitor or post, so I am just going to kind of lay it out there, and would appreciate input. I will respond as I am able.

Desires - to either bypass MBA school and get hired into S&T, or to use MBA as a means to get into S&T

Note - I already have an MFin (but its from the University of Colorado), so I struggle with paying $100 - 150K more for MBA school

Stats - 3.7 UG GPA, Penn State double major Econ/SC&IS, 3.8+ GPA MFin University of Colorado, 660

I am AF officer currently deployed for a year, and have no chance at retaking the GMAT, which I did once with just a bit of preparation. My work is pretty high visibility both politically and financially, so my deployment evals should reflect that either on my resume or in an application. I will have been active duty for 4+ years by application time.

I have recently won several awards from the AF for my work in previous years, so in accordance with that plus my letters of recommendation the "work" part of my app should be pretty solid.

Basically I am looking for input as to: A. Am I going to HAVE to go the MBA route, because of prevailing economic conditions, B. If so, where do I stand a chance given academic credentials and employment history? If I go I only want to go to a school that can get me into the S&T pipeline. In that sense, off the top I am thinking that UNC and UVa are top choices. I realize that on the surface my scores could exclude me from the big dogs, at least for full time programs. I personally would be interested in Columbia, NYU, UPenn (no shot), perhaps Georgetown, and of course HBS in addition to the above.

I personally think I could stand a chance at landing at a firm in NY (have a lot of undergrad fraternity buddies in several, or could start at a smaller one), and then do NYU's night program.

Have taken the most trading oriented classes available in my program, to include a financial innovations class (mostly structured products), financial modeling, futures & options, investment management analysis (I realize this does nothing for trading other than understanding fundies and understanding how mutual/pension funds think), and security analysis & firm valuation (again same thing). So it was reasonably quant heavy.

I realize that institutionally it has little correlation, but have been trading rather actively since high school, especially options. Basically I am comfortable with the technical jargon- believe heavily in Moving Averages, Relative Strength Index, Money Flow Index, Stochastics Oscillator, Moving Average Convergence/Divergence, On Balance Volume, Commodity Channel Index, Sibbet Demand Index, Price Rate of Change, Detrended Price Oscillator, William's Percent R, and Bollinger Bands, etc.

Believe in increasing alpha by buttressing an equity and derivatives portfolio with 15-25% mid to high yield fixed income, especially if it can be levered prudently.

Fundies, Macroecon, and quant are topics with which I am also comfortable.

So,

To summate: MUST I go to MBA school? If so, where can I get in that will take me to S&T?

 

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