Graduate Programs for Officers; Advice on how to pursue them?

1LT Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 14:56:49 -0500

I am looking for more information on Army sponsored programs for graduate programs and advice from other officers on some tips on how to pursue it. The Ed center was great about showing me financial aid and individual schools, but not so much on Army-sponsored programs such as fellowships or timeline guidance.

My goal is to attend George Washington University and earn my degree while in uniform in order to professionally develop/prepare for continued assignment in the Army, so I'm not looking for information as if I were getting out.

I know many of these are featured on our branch pages, but what other advice is out there? When is the best time to study for the GRE? What are some of the better programs? What experience do Senior Officers have for when the best time in our careers should we pursue graduate degree's. Post-Company Command? Post KD time as a Major?

Thank you to any contributors.

Edit: I've gotten many great responses very quickly and with thorough information. Thank you to all who provided solid input, feel very well armed to make the next steps.

Response by TSgt Joshua Copeland made Jan 25 at 2015 3:08 PM

TSgt Joshua Copeland — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:08:35 -0500

I can't speak directly to the army programs, but definitely look in to the Navy Post Grad School, Air Force Institute of Technology, National Intelligence University, The National Defense University, and a host of other DoD sponsor programs.

http://www.nps.edu/
http://www.afit.edu/
http://www.dia.mil/Training/NationalIntelligenceUniversity%28NIU%29.aspx
http://www.ndu.edu/

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 25 at 2015 3:15 PM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:15:53 -0500

1LT Private RallyPoint Member , my friend LTC(P) Private RallyPoint Member went through this and should definitely be able to answer your questions.

You should make contact with her and then message her personally. The program definitely worked well for her.

I hope it works well for you. Take Care.

Response by LTC Yinon Weiss made Jan 25 at 2015 3:32 PM

LTC Yinon Weiss — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:32:56 -0500

When assigned to graduate school, many (if not all?) Army officers fall under administrative command of the student detachment at Fort Jackson. Below is a link to over 100 RallyPoint members currently in this unit, which I assume means they are currently going to grad school. There are also over 100 past members. You should feel free to try to connect with some of them and learn more directly. I'm also going to tag a few here hoping that they can post their general advice. Great question!

https://www.rallypoint.com/units/usasd-student-det-us-army-student-detachment-fort-jackson-sc/current

US Army Student Detachment (USASD (Student Det)), Special Troops Battalion, Fort Jackson members...

Find US Army Student Detachment (USASD (Student Det)) members on RallyPoint.

Response by COL Jason Smallfield, PMP, CFM, CM made Jan 25 at 2015 3:44 PM

COL Jason Smallfield, PMP, CFM, CM — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:44:07 -0500

Good question, where to start?
- HRC. Contact your branch rep at HRC who will know all of the programs and possibilities for your year group and branch.
- DA PAM 600-3. This document lays out how you should grow up big and strong within your branch.
- Self Assessment. What are your personal and professional goals in the near (up to 1 year), mid (1-5 years), and long (5-10 years)? Hard to know what graduate programs are good for you if you do not know yourself).
- Other options. Be willing to look at other options such as ACS, Training With Industry, Project Warrior, Army Broadening Opportunity Programs (BOP), USMA Instructor, Interagency Fellowship, AFPAK Hands, Olmsted, JCS Intern, Congressional Fellow, SAMS, DARPA, etc.
- Some branches have Cooperative Degree Programs (Engineers do) and international opportunities such as the Royal School of Military Survey (geospatial).
The Army BOP includes: White House Fellows Program, HQDA Harvard Strategist Program, Joint Chief of Staff/OSD/DA Internship Program, Olmsted Scholarship Program, Gen Wayne A. Downing Scholarship Program, Army Congressional Fellowship Program, Arroyo Center Fellowship, CSA Strategic Studies Group, DoD Information Assurance Scholarship Program, Asia Pacific Center Fellowship, Marshall European Center Fellowship, DoS Strategic Policy Planning Fellowship, and DARPA Fellowship to name a few.
- Much like finding scholarships for college, graduate programs for officers are numerous. You just have to do your research and figure out which you are eligible for, competitive for, and support your personal/professional goals.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 25 at 2015 3:46 PM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:46:34 -0500

By no means am I the authoritative answer on this, but from my experience, if you did not contract for grad school in college (GRADSO-which is the program I am), your best bet is applying as an instructor at USMA. Each department have the information you need as potential faculty on http://www.usma.edu. I would recommend talking with your branch manager fairly early on (like CCC timeframe) if it's an avenue you want to take.

The Army also just announced a performance based graduate school program (http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/officer/2014/12/08/performance-based-grad-school/19843661/) so there is an option there as well.

There are also several fellowships out there that are highly competitive, but are announced via MILPER each year. The Downing Fellowship, JCS/OSD/ARSTAF Fellowship, Congressional Fellows, to name a few, are all out there.

Basically, you need to complete company command to get the Army to send you to any of these programs, but I would recommend studying for the GREs now. Your scores are good for five years, and as someone who tried to study while in command, I can tell you it was near impossible.

I hope this helped. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions.

Army launches new graduate school program

New graduate school program has $43,000 tuition cap

Response by COL Jason Smallfield, PMP, CFM, CM made Jan 25 at 2015 3:51 PM

COL Jason Smallfield, PMP, CFM, CM — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 15:51:21 -0500

Some thoughts on your specific questions:
- What other advice is out there? See my previous post.
- When is the best time to study for the GRE? I recommend you take your GRE twice. Once right after graduation from college. The GRE is good for five years and nice to have one in the bank if needed. Second time take when you are seriously looking at graduate programs (if outside the GRE five years or if you want to improve your score).
- What are some of the better programs? Depends on how you define "better" personally. Private sector valued? Military valued? Personally valued? Cost? Cost Benefit?
- What experience do Senior Officers have for when the best time in our careers should we pursue graduate degree's? Look at your personal and professional goals then look at your timeline for when you want or can best fit a graduate degree into your program. CPT years might be best for one person while MAJ years is better for another person. Easy to provide a macro answer of "it depends", harder to give a micro answer that is best for you since it is heavily situation dependent.
- Recommendation. Talk to many people and many different types of people for their advice. Consider their advice and what makes sense for you. Develop COAs from this. Decide on a COA that works for you.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 25 at 2015 4:04 PM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 16:04:36 -0500

1LT Private RallyPoint Member, I just graduated from the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado - Boulder in December 2014. My advice would be to work with your assignment officer because they know the number and types of ACS slots they have to fill. They can coach you on the best time to apply. Having done this as a senior major, I would say CPT or MAJ would be the time to do this program because you spend the most time in those two ranks. Just make sure you hit the right duty positions (KD jobs) at each grade or that you have enough time to hit those duty positions after you graduate.

One thing to keep in mind: you may want to accomplish this program straight out of an Army assignment where you have better ability to achieve ACOM OERs. It's difficult to get ACOM OERs in the joint world because of immature SR profiles.

As far as the GRE - I took the test (requirement for grad school) after 1 week of studying and passed. I don't know that I was necessarily comfortable with that time frame, I had to play "catch up" on that requirement. I would recommend giving yourself two-four weeks of study for the GRE.

Response by LCDR Rabbah Rona Matlow made Jan 25 at 2015 5:41 PM

LCDR Rabbah Rona Matlow — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 17:41:13 -0500

I earned my first Masters at Old Dominion while I was stationed at COMPTEVFOR, the Navy's Testing force. I used Navy tuition assistance for this degree. I got two more MAs and the first year of Seminary using the MGIB. All this was after getting my BS through ROTC. The military is huge on supporting all education including graduate education.

One thing to consider - you're still pretty junior. You might want to focus on your career and beginning your family if you haven't already. When you're a CPT, you might want to look at Graduate ed then. To go to GWU would really mean being stationed inside the Beltway, and that means extremely long working hours - it's not impossible by any means, but it's certainly difficult, especially if your job has you going TDY frequently.

Whatever you decide, keep in mind that you can promote without an MA, but if you get poor evaluations (I don't know what the Army calls them) you will suffer and not get promoted, so establish yourself as an outstanding junior officer, then worry about it.

Those are my 5 cents (2 cents aren't worth much any more...) take them or leave them...

Good luck and best of success...

Response by LTC Jason Mackay made Jan 25 at 2015 7:02 PM

LTC Jason Mackay — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 19:02:09 -0500

My experience with 'which university' varies. If you go to a specific HRC program, it is prescribed. If your goal is a Masters, worry more about the degree program and not so much the school. My personal experience on full funded ACS programs wAs this: lowest bidder. I got accepted to several schools for a variety of programs I was interested in as a CPT...when I had career white space to do it. I could not get a slot and branch was content to leave me right where I was. Was also told the programs I picked would not gain traction because they were not branch related. Years later when I was around the corner from Major, branch saw my GRE score I had sent to them for my file, and was informed I had a slot if I could get accepted in 3 weeks. I ended up at California State Univ San Bernardino because they could 'turn' my application, accept me, and come in cheapest even though I was not a resident. OBTW had to take the GMAT on a week's notice and had to break 500. That was HRCs insurance policy I would not bolo. My school's average was 450, which is kind of low. I ended up jamming myself up with having to get KD in a hurry as a Major and get in ILE (by sister service as it turned out) in time for the O5 board PZ. Moral to the story, if you are enamored with a specific (costly) school you may get your heart broken.