Business Mangement

 In the US, as in many other countries, we honor our veterans for the sacrifices they make to protect our country and defend freedom – especially on Veteran’s Day.

Business schools respect and value veterans and active-duty military MBA applicants too— especially for the strengths they bring. Veterans emerge from their service with leadership, strategy, planning, and management skills that companies want and need, and that can make them very attractive candidates.

However, those in the military may not be familiar with the benefits and opportunities of an MBA. They may have limited exposure to industries and business functions and may be unsure about how their experiences transfer to the business world. And when it comes to the rigorous and competitive MBA application process, they may find themselves a bit at sea.

With some guidance on positioning themselves, veterans and active-duty military personnel can be strong candidates for top MBA programs. My Fortuna colleagues and I have coached countless veterans through the process, and we’ve assembled some of our top tips and strategies. If you would like to discuss how this advice applies to your specific circumstances, we’d be thrilled to chat with you.

Plan a Generous Timeline

One thing military MBA applicants might not expect when beginning the application process is the timeline of the application cycle and the time it will take to complete applications. 

“I cannot possibly emphasize this enough. In a best-case scenario, active-duty military members should start preparing at least a year and a half before they plan to get to campus,” says Mark O’Connell, a former Marine and Fortuna client. That can include three months to study and take the GMAT or GRE, three months to assemble all the application elements, and potentially as much as a year after acceptance before the MBA program begins. 

The obligations of active service might extend this even longer, O’Connell notes. “If you add in a three- to six-month workup and a six- to nine-month high-intensity deployment, active-duty members may need as much as two and a half years of preparation time before they get to campus.” 

“My preparation stretched over the course of three and a half years, which made the entire process much less stressful and helped my applications be the best they could be,” O’Connell says. He was admitted to three schools applied to four schools and enrolled at Michigan Ross in August 2023. 

Translating Transferable Skills

In your resume and essays, emphasize the leadership, teamwork, discipline, and problem-solving skills gained during military service. Be sure to translate those skills and experiences into business contexts and terminology to show how they apply to the corporate world.

“Make sure that the terms you use are universally understood,” O’Connell advises. “Many titles, roles, and functions like ‘signals intelligence’ are generally meaningless anywhere besides the military.” Veterans’ groups at your target school will likely be willing to review your material and help translate it into business terms, and this is of course something we keep a careful eye on with our clients’ applications at Fortuna. 

Understand Your Opportunities

For some veterans, defining a viable career goal may require gaining a deeper understanding of the business world. For example, I have had several Fortuna clients with military backgrounds ask, “What is consulting, really?” Take time to do the research and networking necessary to understand the possibilities. An MBA admissions coach can help you understand the MBA environment and opportunities; talking to veterans who earned their MBA is also invaluable. The VA also offers education and career counseling services. 

Clarify Your Career Goals

Our advice for a military MBA applicant is the same thing we stress to civilian applicants: Make sure you have a clear career vision with achievable short- and long-term goals. Why do you want an MBA? Where will you put it to use? How will it help you succeed in your chosen field? 

Business schools want students who will contribute to the MBA class and community — and impact the business world with their MBA. Be prepared to explain concisely and persuasively how you will do both. Your career goal provides the thread running through and tying together every element of your MBA application: your resume, essays, recommendations, interview, and other requirements. 

Highlight Your Achievements

With its hierarchical culture, the military offers more awards, commendations, and opportunities for promotion than may be available in the corporate world. Be sure to showcase any that you earned along the way. This will set you apart from other applicants and demonstrate your commitment and excellence.

Be Honest and Authentic

Don’t try to be something that you aren’t, cautions O’Connell. “Many of us in the military have never had to manage a budget or do statistical analysis of a business problem. The acrobatics required to make your experience sound like that will probably make your accomplishments sound made up.”

Do think about what makes your role, function, and experience in the service unique and speak to that. “You’ll have to create resume bullets that communicate tangible impact while simultaneously showcasing your character as a person, but I guarantee they will be incredibly powerful.”

Pick and Prep Your Recommenders Well

For many current and former military candidates, recommenders will likely be their current commanding officer (CO), previous CO, or an independent mentor from inside the service. 

“These are all phenomenal recommendation writers because they know you far better than any typical boss in the corporate world,” O’Connell says. “Not many corporate bosses have had to sleep in the mud or walk into the line of fire next to you. A great recommendation leverages that deeply personal connection to showcase your entire personality and your character, not just what you’ve been able to accomplish from a work perspective.

However, there are also some pitfalls to watch out for. One of the biggest is that most superiors in the service have not attended an MBA program and have had little interaction with anyone who earned an MBA. They may be skilled at writing precise, succinct military-style reports but have little sense of what an MBA admissions committee is trying to learn from a recommendation.

This makes “managing up” vital to securing a great recommendation. It’s crucial that the recommendation sounds organic, not coached. However, more coaching than might be normal is needed to make sure the recommendation comes off in a way that is appealing to MBA adcoms. 

“Fortuna’s resources were critical in helping me strike that balance,” O’Connell says. “The framework provided was immensely helpful in terms of reminding my bosses of what I had accomplished while I had worked for them. They helped me explain how to effectively communicate their thoughts on my performance and keep them on track and on time for submitting the recommendation.”

See Fortuna’s blog on this topic for a deeper dive into the benefits of getting your MBA after military service, how to spot b-schools that welcome vets, and tips on how to finance your post-military MBA.

 It’s Wharton again. In its annual ranking of undergraduate business schools, U.S. News & World Report has once again bestowed top honors on the University of Pennsylvania’s vaunted B-school.

Wharton was first in last year’s ranking, as well as the year before that, the year before that, and the year before that. It has been the top B-school in Poets&Quants’ undergraduate ranking for six of the last seven years, too.

Much of the top 10 in U.S. News‘ 2025 ranking of B-schools was unchanged from last year, with MIT and UC-Berkeley once again tied for second place, followed by Michigan and NYU to round out the top 5. The University of Texas at Austin dropped to 6th from 5th, and Carnegie Mellon University climbed to 6th from 7th.

In 13 separate rankings for business specializations, Wharton — with an undergraduate enrollment of 9,995 in fall 2023 — was again the biggest winner, ranking in the top five in analytics, finance (where it was No. 1), international business, management (also No. 1), marketing, operations management, quantitative analysis, and real estate. Its parent school, the University of Pennsylvania, ranked No. 10 overall in best colleges and universities.

U.S. NEWS TOP 10 (REALLY 11) UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOLS

A LOT OF TIES

U.S. News & World Report‘s Best Undergraduate Business Programs rankings are based on the judgments of deans and senior faculty members at peer institutions who participated in a peer assessment survey. The magazine, surveyed deans and senior faculty members at all 532 undergraduate business programs accredited by AACSB International in the spring and summer of 2024; all 532 programs were ranked. The respondents — two at each AACSB-accredited business program — rated the quality of all programs with which they were familiar on a 5-point scale: outstanding (5), strong (4), good (3), adequate (2) or marginal (1).

This year, the business survey had a 46.9% response rate. That’s down from 49.9% last year.

The magazine’s methodology leads to a lot of ties. In the top 10 alone, three schools were tied at No. 6 and three more at No. 9 — making the top 10 a top 11, in reality. Further down the ranking, four schools tied at No. 14, five schools at No. 18, four at No. 23, nine at No. 27, four at No. 36, 13 at No. 40, 12 at No. 53, 12 at No. 65, 17 at No. 77, and 20 (!) at No. 94.

NOTABLE JUMPS & DROPS

Noteworthy changes in standing occurred for Washington University in St. Louis, whose Olin Business School dropped to 18th from 13th, and for two Midwestern schools: The Ohio State University and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, both of which climbed to 14th from 17th.

The University of Oklahoma had among the biggest improvements in rank, climbing from 70th to 53rd, while the Air Force Academy flew from 84th to 65th. Among the biggest drops in rank: Texas Christian University dropped to 94th from 70th, and Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts–Amherst both fell from 47th to 65th. Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge dropped out of the top 100 altogether, falling from 84th to 114th.

Among states, California had the most B-schools on the list, with 11, followed by New York (10), Texas (nine), Massachusetts (eight), and Pennsylvania (seven).

U.S. NEWS 2024-2025 BEST NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES TOP 10

SOURCE: U.S. NEWS

DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN GOT IT RIGHT 

The Best Undergraduate Business Schools list is published as part of the magazine’s Best National Universities ranking. The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania, published an advance copy of the 10 top schools in the Best National Universities ranking on September 10. It turned out to be accurate, despite the magazine insisting what the student paper had published was only a preliminary list.

In this overall ranking for universities and colleges, Princeton University took No. 1 for the 10th consecutive year, MIT placed second for the fourth straight year, and Harvard University placed third for the third year in a row. Stanford University was fourth, down from third in 2023-2024, and Yale University was fifth, same as last year. See the rest of the top 10 above.

Penn dropped to 10th from sixth place, its lowest rank since 1997, when it ranked 13th. The school, home to The Wharton School, which was No. 1 in Poets&Quants’ most recent ranking of undergraduate business programs, ranked as high as No. 4 on U.S. News‘ university list as recently as 2010.

 A twice-impeached, four-times indicted convicted felon has been elected President of the United States.

Trump not only won the Electoral College. Shockingly, he won the popular vote.

Political experts are already saying fear and anger won Trump’s reelection. In fact, this election was a triumph against elitism, reason, intellect, and politically correct dogma. In a country where fewer than a third of the citizens have a college degree, an impulsive man who is interested only in himself is returning to the most powerful office in the world.

DISILLUSIONED AND AGGRIEVED, THE UNEDUCATED BROUGHT TRUMP BACK

It was Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik who recently predicted that “the biggest single, best predictor of how someone’s going to vote in American politics now is education level. That is now the new fault line in American politics.” The data support this view. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis documented that for every dollar of wealth in a household headed by a college graduate, a household headed by a high school graduate has 22 cents. In his last victory, Trump gained the support of some two-thirds of White voters without a college degree, while losing White college-educated voters.

It is why President Biden has publicly said that the majority of jobs created by his infrastructure bill will go to those without college degrees. And it is why Vice President Kamala Harris vowed to nix “unnecessary degree requirements” for federal jobs on day one, a day that will never come.

“People who climbed the academic ladder were feted with accolades, while those who didn’t were rendered invisible,” writes David Brooks in an essay in The New York Times. “Society worked as a vast segregation system, elevating the academically gifted above everybody else,” “Before long, the diploma divide became the most important chasm in American life. High school graduates die nine years sooner than college-educated people. They die of opioid overdoses at six times the rate. They marry less and divorce more and are more likely to have a child out of wedlock. They are more likely to be obese. A recent American Enterprise Institute study found that 24 percent of people who graduated from high school at most have no close friends. They are less likely than college grads to visit public spaces or join community groups and sports leagues. They don’t speak in the right social justice jargon or hold the sort of luxury beliefs that are markers of public virtue.”

They sought revenge, someone who would disrupt everything, regardless of whether it would actually help them.  It’s not something that any smart and ambitious international student could understand. As a round one international MBA applicant put it, “It’s challenging to grasp how such a significant portion of Americans resonate with the vision that Trump and the Republican Party represent. What’s even more concerning is how this might affect international students and professionals who contribute so much to the U.S. The climate feels less welcoming, and I’m sure many others feel so uncertain about their place and future here.”

The implications for higher education in the U.S. are massive.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT IN A SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

While many say you can’t take Trump at his word, they underestimate what a second-term Presidency with Trump in the White House would be like. Trump will now surround himself with right-leaning extremists, loyal to him not the Constitution or the country. He will have the support of a Republican-controlled Senate and House. And he will not have to worry about the consequences of his decisions because he will not be able to run again.

What can you expect?

• A plunge in international applicants. Applicant pools and class cohorts will experience a significant decline in prospective students from abroad. Many international applicants decided to hold off on applying in round one deadlines so that they could submit an application knowing the outcome of this election. With this Trump win, they will perceive the country as unwelcoming and suspicious of them and choose to study elsewhere.
• The elimination or diminishment of OPT (optional practical training). In the past ten years, one business school after another has rushed to get STEM designation for its graduate programs. Going STEM assured international students of landing a job in the U.S. for three full years. That extension allowed these graduates to apply for an H1b vision in three lotteries.  Trump’s senior advisor, Stephen Miller, has shaped Trump’s draconian immigration policies. Miller, who played a role in Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, has OPT in his crosshairs
• The dismantling of the Department of Education. This long-promised piece of Trump’s policy agenda is a likely outcome of the election. After all, it fits with the war on the educated that the Republican Party has been waging under Trump for some time. The impact of either the department’s abolishment or a major reduction in funding could make it more difficult for students to access federal financial aid, harm schools that rely on federal money and make higher education a riskier proposition.
• The elimination of all funding for universities and schools that have diversity and inclusion policies. Many universities have devoted significant resources to DEI offices and policies that are widely seen by Trump enthusiasts as disguised mandates for affirmative action.

IS THERE AN UPSIDE? DON’T BET ON IT

Truth be told, it’s hard to imagine any upside to higher education in a Trump administration. Yet the dean of American University’s Kogod School of Business has taken an optimistic view of things. Noting his own personal disappointment in the outcome of the election, Dean David Marchick wrote that he believes the work ahead is more critical than ever.

“I am struck that our work in academia is more important today than it was yesterday,” he wrote in an email to the community. “If you believe we need to address the climate crisis, we should work to create a more sustainable world through business, as progress in the next few years will come through business, not government. If you believe that better business practices can help people of color and those who are impoverished participate more fully in the economy, our scholarship and teaching in that area has never been more critical. Each of you changes lives every day with teaching, research, and engagement with students, helping young people reach their full potential and enabling them to launch meaningful and successful careers. ”  

The best advice? Hunker down. The next four years will be a highly challenging time for business education and for higher education in general.