William & Mary Proudly Welcomes Active Duty Students & Veterans
Located in Williamsburg, Virginia, William & Mary's Raymond A. Mason School of Business is at the heart of one of the most military-dense regions in the United States. Because of this, we are uniquely positioned to understand and support the invaluable contributions that active duty service members and military veterans can make to our university community. That's why we strive to offer programs that are conveniently accessible online, along with a host of additional accommodations to support the educational goals of our servicemen and women in all branches of our military.
Transcript
Kathryn H. Floyd: I think the William & Mary VET program has a beautiful structure to it. We're united under our special assistant, but each part is its own home with its own special responsibilities. It brings together the Center for Military Transition, our Office of Student Veteran Engagement, of course, my Whole of Government Center, but there are so many other pieces. We include the Reves Center for International Studies all the way to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. It's really, truly whole-of-university.
Jonathan Due: The Office of Student Veteran Engagement really focuses on the undergraduate experience and then the specific opportunities that those students need, while the Center for Military Transition can offer advice at the graduate level, particularly within the large concentration of student veterans we have in the Mason School of Business.
Kathryn H. Floyd: The Whole of Government Center of Excellence was established to serve everyone from local to international. And what we do is we offer training, educational, and research opportunities, especially at the mid-career military and public policy levels.
Jonathan Due: One of the interesting things that we have found, as we started to get out and execute these programs specifically designed for veteran students, is that there's a large, significant, and ready audience even in our online programs as well.
Kord Basnight: William & Mary is making an impact around the country that nobody knows about, but I am the poster child to tell you about it. I got my undergrad here and ended up going to law school. I had done an internship with the Army where I really liked what I saw. That's where I headed. I joined the Army JAG Corps. I had retired from the Army, so I caught wind of a bunch of veteran programs here at the school. One that really piqued my interest was a master's from the Ed School that would permit those of us who went through the program to get a degree that qualified us to become counselors for military and veteran communities. And I thought I would try this program just for kicks. I was working full-time, and it was online. The topic was especially interesting to me. I have a lot of buddies in the service who are not in good shape after the op-tempo we've been through for the last 20 years, and I wanted to do something to give back. I think the online program is exactly what we need, and for us, it makes it possible for us to hit people all over the country. We have therapists being produced not just in Williamsburg, but all over the country every year. It's just incredible.
Maia Earl: I joined the Air Force at the age of 18, served from 2008 to 2016, and then I did a year of the Reserve. Well, I was looking for a school that would be military-friendly. One of the first things that I found on their website was Charlie Foster's Student Veteran Engagement office. As soon as I was accepted to William & Mary, I got an email from Charlie. He reached out and just said, "Hey, I'm here to support you and let me know if you need anything." And that was huge, that personal connection. Someone, not just the school at large, saying, "Welcome to William & Mary." It was a person saying, "I've got you." The value of that can't be overstated.
Christian Chisolm: I did my undergraduate at the College of William & Mary. I was a football player under coach Jimmye Laycock. I was in the ROTC, and I studied government and history. After William & Mary, I commissioned as a second lieutenant and deployed into Europe. And I am an MBA candidate for the class of 2024. Honestly, William & Mary is home. William & Mary's been my dream school since I was a kid, and the first opportunity I saw to come back, I took it and ran with it. The Flourishing program was an extremely insightful opportunity, not only for transitioning out of the military, but transitioning into business school. We talked a lot about wellness and mental health and changing the way you think and using your military strengths and using it in your civilian life. We'd go do yoga, we'd kayak in the Lake Matoaka, or we'd go to networking events. That really resonated with me.
Jonathan Due: We have the opportunity to connect student veterans in a meaningful way with executive partners, with alumni, with long-standing corporate relationships we have, as well as then to make sure that they're aware of different veteran benefits at the federal level, at the state level, with what the Commonwealth offers. But more importantly, we are able to array all those different nodes of a keen network to really be at the beck and call of that student veteran in the center. And by doing that, we think we can really empower them to define what their next chapter of service is going to be.
Top-Ranked Military Friendly School
We have been designated a Military Friendly School by Military Friendly®. We have also been recognized as one of the nation’s top institutions for military and veteran students, earning a #2 ranking among graduate schools in the 2025-2026 Military Friendly® School survey.1 This designation demonstrates our deep commitment to our nation’s active duty service members and military veterans. We believe that supporting veterans in their pursuit of education not only betters their own lives—it also betters the nation, helping us to prosper for generations to come.
Center for Military Transition
The Raymond A. Mason School of Business’ Center for Military Transition (CMT) is a national leader in helping veterans like you transition into a successful civilian life in high-level management positions. Programs offered through the CMT help mitigate the challenges you may face as a transitioning service member and as a graduate business student.
Programs offered by the CMT include:
Flourishing Through Life Transitions
This program is a Veteran-to-Executive (W&M VET) certificate program that emphasizes wellness and self-discovery. Open to veterans and members of the intelligence community, this program aims to help you transition to a high-level civilian management position while flourishing in your career and personal life.
Veteran Mentorship Program
The William & Mary Veteran Mentorship Program (VMP) connects student veterans in meaningful ways to William & Mary alumni, allies and veterans to identify and pursue viable pathways to their next chapter of service. Designed to augment what our student veterans learn in the classroom, the program explicitly connects our students to meaningful career opportunities through the power of relationships and the Tribe.
Connect With the Center for Military Transition
Jonathan “JD” Due
Executive Director, Center for Military Transition
757-221-1711
jonathan.due@mason.wm.edu
Perspectives From Our Veteran Alumni
The skills, experiences and perspectives gained through military service create an exceptional foundation for business leadership. In a webinar for veteran and military-affiliated students, alumni shared their personal experiences and thoughts on how William & Mary supports military-affiliated students in the online graduate business programs.
Kwesi C., MBA ’23, details how the skills he gained in the military translated well into the civilian space and the online MBA program.
Video Transcript
So I was an intelligence officer. And prior to that, I was an infantry officer. So I guess there was that period of time where I had an epiphany where I was like, hey, I want to do something a little bit more technical. And so as an intelligence officer, I was a special operations. I did the withdrawal of Afghanistan, Bosnia, Ukraine so there was a lot of strategy. There was a lot of operations. There was a lot of critical thinking, time management, and a lot of those things transitioned very well.
The leadership out here in the civilian space, as well as in the MBA program when we're talking about the Renaissance leader when we're talking about operations, we're talking about strategy, even a little bit of marketing, all those different things, you kind of have this innate kind of sense of this, I can understand these disciplines, even though they're related to business, even though they're related to commercial. And so I used a lot of that during my time in the military, which really did help me. I leveraged in all those skills the military imparted into learning about the various disciplines that the MBA offered and then taking those and applying them out here into the consulting space, especially in the consultant space. You want to do anything consultancy.
William & Mary's where you want to be at because huge in the consulting space, huge network out here. Very strong. And a little bit of that, the networking piece. Networking exists in the military. So don't lose sight of that. Bring that in bring that out here to the civilian world. Bring that out here into your mba Network, network, network, because that's what's driving value out here. That's what's getting people in positions to create value and to just get out here and flourish. Kind of out there outside of the skills, but yes some of those strategy operations, critical thinking, a little bit of technology too, if you're an intel guy or gal, you do a lot of things with Palantir and various other programs that that are actually very, very marketable here on the outside. So that's something that, you know, keep in mind. Don't discredit your military experience. Your military experience is very impactful and people are looking for it. Trust me.
Nick B., MBA ’24, shares how he completed his work for the Online MBA program as he traveled for his military career.
Video Transcript
So I enlisted in the Navy right out of high school and i uh I am rated as a fire control in the Navy, so I work on weapons systems, fire control networks, computer systems and whatnot. The program for me the program for me I was really impressed with the fact that it was so flexible, as you had alluded to. The last three years I have been on shore duty. However, it's not the typical shore duty. We still go out and I am now, my current role as a weapons material inspector. So I go out to ships. We get underway for two or three days at a time. I assess them and these ships are most of the time here in Norfolk. However, I do frequently travel to Florida, to California, to Poland, Romania, Bahrain, Spain. So my job takes me all over the place and probably travel about two to three times per month out of the area. And being able to still work on the program and interact with my class and having support from the instructors was probably a key to my success. And one of the things that I really liked about the program the most was that all the content is asynchronous. There are synchronous components that are optional. So you still have the ability to interact with your classmates. You still have the ability to sit in on lectures. However, there is always an alternate activity. It's not required. So it gives you that flexibility there.
While these last two years, I've really been able to apply a lot of what I've learned throughout the program in my current role, specifically from the data analytics course and the accounting course. I've even used a lot of that in my own nonprofit that I am part of. The value doesn't always, it's not coming necessarily when you graduate, you get it immediately as you go through the program. That was my experience so far.
Want to learn more about the veteran and military-affiliated student experience in our online programs?
More Than a Degree.
This Is Your Launchpad.
A William & Mary education is not just a degree but a unique connection to a tight-knit community of students, alumni, bold educators and driven, principled, connected leaders. Build your brand with a university known for breaking barriers, championing integrity and channeling academic grit since its inception.
The Raymond A. Mason School of Business imparts essential business knowledge and builds the dynamic mindset necessary to lead in today’s challenging and rapidly changing business environment. As an online graduate business student, you will:
✓ Graduate with the perspective to envision and enact positive
change
✓ Access mentorship and experiential learning opportunities
✓ Receive personalized career support
✓ Build a lasting network to bolster your career for years to
come
This will only take a moment.
We Are a Yellow Ribbon School
The Yellow Ribbon Program is designed to close the gap between the cost of your program and the in-state tuition rate covered by the GI Bill. You may be eligible for the Yellow Ribbon program if you are an out-of-state student who also qualifies 100 percent through the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
Additionally, active duty service members and veterans who are accepted into and enroll in our Online MBA program may be eligible for the Kyle J. Milliken Memorial Scholarship.
Featured Articles
Interested in Our Online Programs?
- Retrieved on April 30, 2025, from militaryfriendly.com/2025-2026-mfs