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

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.

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.

1LT (Join to see), 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.