AAR: From the Marines to an MBA/MPP at Stanford and Harvard

After coming to the conclusion that I wanted to transition off of active duty and go to graduate school, I did some preliminary research on resources for veterans’ transition and stumbled onto Service to School’s page. I filled out the contact form and was put in touch with an ambassador who helped me tweak my resume and essays for my target schools over the course of the application season.

S2S was especially helpful when it came time to gather information on the culture and fit of different schools. S2S served as a one-stop shop not just for admissions advice and mentorship, but also for leveraging the veteran network and reaching out to veterans at various programs throughout the country. While many MBA applicants from traditional business backgrounds have the benefit of mentorship from their supervisors who have their own MBAs and have been through the application process, most service members lack that benefit and have to typically navigate their own way—figuring out on their own how to properly coach recommenders, tweaking essays, and learning to translate resumes into something that admissions officers can appreciate. S2S provided these tools that were necessary to successfully navigate the transition back into the classroom.

Equally importantly, S2S also provided a community of driven veterans who are eager to give back and make an impact on the veteran community and society at large through lives of continued service in various sectors of society. For today’s generation of veterans who typically quietly and individually dissipate back into the general population, it was encouraging to know that a welcoming veteran community existed on “the outside.”

After a long application season, I was admitted to my target schools and will be pursuing an MBA/MPP at Stanford and Harvard, respectively. My many thanks to S2S for bridging the gap and providing an avenue for veterans to successfully make the jump and enabling today’s generation of veterans to live lives of further impact and service.

David Lee commissioned through the NROTC program at the University of Michigan and graduated with degrees in Political Science and History. As a second lieutenant, he was stationed in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii with 1st Battalion, 12th Marines where he served as a platoon commander, the assistant operations officer, and the operations officer. David is currently serving with 3rd ANGLICO as a firepower controller and will be pursuing his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his MPP at Harvard Kennedy School.