Supply OCS Chances (Immigrant background + funky waiver situation)

[Seawarriors0115]

Hello, please let me hear your honest thoughts on my chances of getting picked for Supply OCS for the upcoming board in Nov. Actively working with a recruiter at this point.

Stats:

• 3.94 GPA.
• Double major in Finance and Economics from a regular state's flagship school.
• OAR : 56
• Pretty involved in student government. Was elected student senator for my college 2 times. Was also captain of my school performing arts team. Won several state-wide competitions.
• 5 LoRs, 1 from college professor, 1 from business mentor, 1 from chair of the finance department of my college (who supervised my senior thesis), 1 from former SWO Lieutenant / Naval Academy Grad who was my manager in my finance job, 1 from a commanding captain of the Supply Corp
• Will be 27yo when I submit my application.

Background:

• 3 years of work experience in Investment Banking + Private Equity. Summer internships at several brand-name companies like Goldman Sachs during college.
• My current work involves a lot of PowerPoint/Excel work + data analysis + pitches. I would say I am very skilled in preparing slide decks/excel sheets.
• Immigrant from Vietnam. Moved to the US since high school. Got my US citizenship a few years ago.

Others:

• I travel a fair amount for work and pleasure (20+ countries). Will be in Vietnam for ~ 4 months consecutively due to some family issues by the time I submit my package. I'm curious how this would affect my security clearance....
• Waiver: will ask for a math-class waiver for some funky reason. My situation is a bit odd regarding the math classes requirement on my transcript. Basically, I took AP Calculus AB + BC in high school and passed them both with high scores, so I received college math credits that way. I didn't take calculus in college for that reason, but did take a bunch of econometrics, accounting, finance, and stats classes thanks to my double major. How often is the waiver granted? Also curious if this could be an issue.

Thank you for any pointers!

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

Hello, please let me hear your honest thoughts on my chances of getting picked for Supply OCS for the upcoming board in Nov. Actively working with a recruiter at this point.

Stats:

• 3.94 GPA.
• Double major in Finance and Economics from a regular state's flagship school.
• OAR : 56
• Pretty involved in student government. Was elected student senator for my college 2 times. Was also captain of my school performing arts team. Won several state-wide competitions.
• 5 LoRs, 1 from college professor, 1 from business mentor, 1 from chair of the finance department of my college (who supervised my senior thesis), 1 from former SWO Lieutenant / Naval Academy Grad who was my manager in my finance job, 1 from a commanding captain of the Supply Corp
• Will be 27yo when I submit my application.

Background:

• 3 years of work experience in Investment Banking + Private Equity. Summer internships at several brand-name companies like Goldman Sachs during college.
• My current work involves a lot of PowerPoint/Excel work + data analysis + pitches. I would say I am very skilled in preparing slide decks/excel sheets.
• Immigrant from Vietnam. Moved to the US since high school. Got my US citizenship a few years ago.

Others:

• I travel a fair amount for work and pleasure (20+ countries). Will be in Vietnam for ~ 4 months consecutively due to some family issues by the time I submit my package. I'm curious how this would affect my security clearance....
• Waiver: will ask for a math-class waiver for some funky reason. My situation is a bit odd regarding the math classes requirement on my transcript. Basically, I took AP Calculus AB + BC in high school and passed them both with high scores, so I received college math credits that way. I didn't take calculus in college for that reason, but did take a bunch of econometrics, accounting, finance, and stats classes thanks to my double major. How often is the waiver granted? Also curious if this could be an issue.

Thank you for any pointers!

Do yourself a big favor and use the search function to look up supply corps OCS board threads to see where you stack against others.

 

[Seawarriors0115]

Do yourself a big favor and use the search function to look up supply corps OCS board threads to see where you stack against others.

Thanks for the pointer. I looked into some previous posts and believe that my numbers will give me a good chance. Just curious about how my waiver / background + other "soft" factors could affect it

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

Thanks for the pointer. I looked into some previous posts and believe that my numbers will give me a good chance. Just curious about how my waiver / background + other "soft" factors could affect it

The math waiver? Likely fine since you tested in high school.

Not tracking any other soft factors.

 

[villo0692]

Hello, please let me hear your honest thoughts on my chances of getting picked for Supply OCS for the upcoming board in Nov. Actively working with a recruiter at this point.

Stats:

• 3.94 GPA.
• Double major in Finance and Economics from a regular state's flagship school.
• OAR : 56
• Pretty involved in student government. Was elected student senator for my college 2 times. Was also captain of my school performing arts team. Won several state-wide competitions.
• 5 LoRs, 1 from college professor, 1 from business mentor, 1 from chair of the finance department of my college (who supervised my senior thesis), 1 from former SWO Lieutenant / Naval Academy Grad who was my manager in my finance job, 1 from a commanding captain of the Supply Corp
• Will be 27yo when I submit my application.

Background:

• 3 years of work experience in Investment Banking + Private Equity. Summer internships at several brand-name companies like Goldman Sachs during college.
• My current work involves a lot of PowerPoint/Excel work + data analysis + pitches. I would say I am very skilled in preparing slide decks/excel sheets.
• Immigrant from Vietnam. Moved to the US since high school. Got my US citizenship a few years ago.

Others:

• I travel a fair amount for work and pleasure (20+ countries). Will be in Vietnam for ~ 4 months consecutively due to some family issues by the time I submit my package. I'm curious how this would affect my security clearance....
• Waiver: will ask for a math-class waiver for some funky reason. My situation is a bit odd regarding the math classes requirement on my transcript. Basically, I took AP Calculus AB + BC in high school and passed them both with high scores, so I received college math credits that way. I didn't take calculus in college for that reason, but did take a bunch of econometrics, accounting, finance, and stats classes thanks to my double major. How often is the waiver granted? Also curious if this could be an issue.

Thank you for any pointers!

as an immigrant myself I'll speak from my experience. the main concern when screening for a clearance will be what they refer to as "foreign incluence" meaning, if you have businesses in other countries, have served in their militaries, have held political office, send money to someone there, use another country's passport to travel, how often do you go there, why do you go there, how many citizenships do you hold, have you tried to renounce to them...etc. It can be granted as long as all these and other factors do not put in question that your allegiance is with the US and the US alone, but I can tell you right now, if you have been to 20+ countries and you are an immigrant it will be a humongous pain in the ass, make sure you gather all pertaining documents and ready to explain a lot of things.

 

[number9]

as an immigrant myself I'll speak from my experience. the main concern when screening for a clearance will be what they refer to as "foreign incluence" meaning, if you have businesses in other countries, have served in their militaries, have held political office, send money to someone there, use another country's passport to travel, how often do you go there, why do you go there, how many citizenships do you hold, have you tried to renounce to them...etc. It can be granted as long as all these and other factors do not put in question that your allegiance is with the US and the US alone, but I can tell you right now, if you have been to 20+ countries and you are an immigrant it will be a humongous pain in the ass, make sure you gather all pertaining documents and ready to explain a lot of things.

This is pretty good advice. I'm also an immigrant and I've been to >50 countries; it took a couple of hours with the interviewer just to get through my travel over the last 2 or 3 years.

In terms of the "use another country's passport" question, my explanation was something like, "my country of birth legally requires you use their passport when entering the country". That seemed to satisfy the interviewer.

 

[Seawarriors0115]

as an immigrant myself I'll speak from my experience. the main concern when screening for a clearance will be what they refer to as "foreign incluence" meaning, if you have businesses in other countries, have served in their militaries, have held political office, send money to someone there, use another country's passport to travel, how often do you go there, why do you go there, how many citizenships do you hold, have you tried to renounce to them...etc. It can be granted as long as all these and other factors do not put in question that your allegiance is with the US and the US alone, but I can tell you right now, if you have been to 20+ countries and you are an immigrant it will be a humongous pain in the ass, make sure you gather all pertaining documents and ready to explain a lot of things.

Thanks for this. I knew I wanted to join the Navy a while ago so I’ve only traveled to US-friendly countries, although not sure where Vietnam falls on that spectrum… I’ve documented all of my travel + itinerary. Do you know if they would require an interview for the background check, if it’s a more complicated case like mine? That would be great for me so I could have a chance to explain to them in person.

 

[Seawarriors0115]

This is pretty good advice. I'm also an immigrant and I've been to >50 countries; it took a couple of hours with the interviewer just to get through my travel over the last 2 or 3 years.

In terms of the "use another country's passport" question, my explanation was something like, "my country of birth legally requires you use their passport when entering the country". That seemed to satisfy the interviewer.

This is helpful to know. Thanks! I’m happy to renounce my other citizenship if needs to.

Can I ask if your background check interview was in person or over the phone?

 

[number9]

This is helpful to know. Thanks! I’m happy to renounce my other citizenship if needs to.

Can I ask if your background check interview was in person or over the phone?

I did ODS, not OCS, and I don't know if the processes are different. My check was over Zoom but this was peak COVID...

 

[villo0692]

Thanks for this. I knew I wanted to join the Navy a while ago so I’ve only traveled to US-friendly countries, although not sure where Vietnam falls on that spectrum… I’ve documented all of my travel + itinerary. Do you know if they would require an interview for the background check, if it’s a more complicated case like mine? That would be great for me so I could have a chance to explain to them in person.

Yeah you’ll have an interview where you will go through all of it, as far as location or method, it could be in person, over the phone, over Zoom/Teams, it depends on location and COVID protocols. Expect for some of your references to have similar interviews as well

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Thanks for this. I knew I wanted to join the Navy a while ago so I’ve only traveled to US-friendly countries, although not sure where Vietnam falls on that spectrum… I’ve documented all of my travel + itinerary. Do you know if they would require an interview for the background check, if it’s a more complicated case like mine? That would be great for me so I could have a chance to explain to them in person.

The only person I had that was denied a clearance due to foreign contacts was a person who had close family in Vietnam and visited them on a regular basis, and after reading @villo0692 post I believe the candidate also sent money back to his family as well.

I worked with an officer who for a time lost his clearance as his wife was from Japan and her father was employed by the Japanese government, it took several months but he was able to get a clearance again and had a successful career.

There were several candidates I had that did lots of traveling and while gathering dates was a pain none had any issue getting a clearance.

 

[number9]

There were several candidates I had that did lots of traveling and while gathering dates was a pain none had any issue getting a clearance.

My recruiter said to me "You have the most international travel of any applicant I have ever seen" so travel itself isn't the issue. Gathering dates wasn't much fun, though...

 

[villo0692]

also….you have to report any “foreign contacts” which include everyone with a dual citizenship or no US citizenship at all….I remember my investigator asking me why I knew so many foreign people….. I’m South American and I live in South Florida, come one. Cumbersome process, but it can be done, just be honest