I am a MI Branch U.S. Army Warrant Officer with 15 years TIS. I have a BA in history from the illustrious AMU. This summer I am PCSing for a 1 year unaccompanied Korea tour. My plan is while in Korea to apply for a 1-year ACS masters program starting in Fall 2020.

Simply having a masters puts me far apart from most of my peers and I am not really sure I plan on staying in much past CW4. I am not sure ILE vs NIU becomes relevant until CW5 but maybe I'm wrong.

So while I want my masters to benefit my career I am also interested in how different programs are viewed outside of the uniform. The main program pushed for WOs is the NIU which I am interested in but I'm also considering Naval Post Gradiate. CGSC, and the Bush School at A&M. My senior rater also suggested looking at various MBA programs

I am at best 5 years from getting out (probably closer to 10) thus not sure what my post-uniform career will be but I would want to be I'm TX and likely of the Intel variety.

I welcome any advice on masters programs I have not considered and/or which ones would best serve me in and out of the uniform. Thanks and gigem.

VC

Unless your career goal is to reclass as a contractor and do the same job you're doing now for L3, CACI, etc., any degree from the Naval Postgraduate School, National Defense University, AFIT, in Military Arts and Sciences, etc. are viewed exactly like associates degrees in the civilian world. Is it nice that you put forth the effort and paid tuition? Sure, but they don't indicate anything to a recruiter.

Almost anything outside of the military is viewed as more useful than those. Recruiters look at it as someone who spent a lifetime in the military and got a degree (from a school whose credentials they don't know) in military-ness.

The usefulness of MBAs is nonlinear. Companies will compete for graduates of Top 20 schools. Companies will readily hire graduates of Top 50 schools. Small companies place value in any "name" school (even if not a top business program) they've heard of. The ROI for unranked and online business programs is negative (unless you get the Army to pay for it).

Edit to add: There is some value in online business programs from schools with strong in residence programs. Florida, William & Mary, and some others have online programs that aren't diploma mills. The learning value isn't as good, but the name on the diploma is.

I don't know enough about non-business online programs to offer an opinion

Thank you for the advice. Whether a MBA or military/international studies type masters I would be looking for a resident one-year program. ACS actually wont pay for unless it is a full time resident program.

LewisChilds said:

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Thank you for the advice. Whether a MBA or military/international studies type masters I would be looking for a resident one-year program. ACS actually wont pay for unless it is a full time resident program.

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If you want to stay in the bubble of the military world and contracting. As the poster above said, then get a degree from the wartime academy.

An MBA is worth more, as you're paying for the network more than the skills. The better the school the better the network.

The more research I do, the more inclined I am to do an MBA. Unfortunately I am finding it difficult to find a 1-year program from a reputable school.

The Army has a 1-year MBA fellowship at William & Mary, which is a Top 30 school. The Army requirements to get in have changed a lot in the ~8 years its been around, so I don't know what they are anymore. It's (it was?) called the James Wright Fellowship.

Here are some other programs with 1-year options that are reputable b-schools:
* Very hard to get in

Northwestern (Kellogg)*
Cornell (Johnson)
Emory (Goizueta)*
Notre Dame (Mendoza)*
Southern Cal (Marshall)*
SMU (Cox)
Pitt (Katz)
Boston University (Questrom)
Purdue (Krannert)
Florida (Hough)
Babson College (Olin)
TCU (Neeley)
South Carolina (Moore)
Miami FL
Cincinnati (Lindner)
Pepperdine (Graziadio)
Kentucky (Gatton)
Mississippi
Saint Louis (Cook)
Tech (Rawls)
Columbia*
Georgia (Terry)
Case Western (Weatherhead)
Washington (Foster)

Others that I don't personally know the quality
SUNY-Binghamton
Lehigh
Brandeis
Rochester (Simon)

Thank you, very helpful!

Not sure how you lumped the NDU in there as an associates degree... I haven't seen a Mil Science degree coming out of there, but maybe I'm wrong and only focused on Eisenhower and NWC. Their faculty seem to be quite different than the schools you mentioned too.

Anyway, very good advice up there. You can also look into a one year Masters in Internstional Business at South Carolina.

Looks like I was mistaken on the max cost. Price cannot exceed $55k for tuition and fees. Rules out a number of those MBA programs unfortunately

Very few MBA programs are worth paying more than $55k - Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, and Chicago have been shown to be the only four that have ROIs that make that tenable. So I wouldn't use the $55k cap as a deterrent to any other school.

This is the order I'd pursue of the "affordable" programs:

Florida
Georgia
SMU
Washington
Boston U

After that, I'd look at the "name" schools. These won't get you a job at McKinsey or Goldman's, but they will certainly get you a job + a large bump in starting salary at Honeywell or Johnson & Johnson

Saint Louis
Tech
TCU
Purdue
South Carolina
Miami
Kentucky
etc.

Honestly, I'd also consider programs that don't require the GMAT. The GMAT is like getting kicked in the junk for 4 hours. The only difference is that when you walk out your junk hurts and you feel bad about yourself because you forgot high school calculus.

Unless your goal is to get a job at McKinsey, you really can't go wrong with a goal to learn more about professional management and the basics of finance, marketing (which has nothing to do with advertising and is actually very applicable to intelligence activities), etc. on the Army's dime.

I adjunct (because I like college kids and my day job is unfulfilling) at a very low-level b-school. I teach the exact same finance topics that I learned at a very good b-school.

This is helpful and thanks again. The Army requires applicants to take either the GRE or GMAT even if the school does not.