I cannot find any information specifically saying yea or nay on this and I was hoping/expecting someone here knows for certain…
I know at the US Service Academies, a cadet may choose to be commissioned in another service (Army cadet could choose to be commissioned in the Navy or Air Force, for example).
Does anyone know if the same option is available to ROTC cadets? D1 is seriously considering ROTC and Nursing, but the college she selected only has Army ROTC. No offense to all things Army, but our family has a long and storied history in the USAF.
Friends of my son are doing the same but with Army ROTC and planning on Air Force but clearly you should talk to the school in question to be absolutely certain.
I would not count on that. It is rare at the service academies and I believe it has to be a one for one swap. If a Midshipman wants to commission Army and a AWP Cadet wants to commission Navy, they can petition for a swap. That would not be automatic by any means. I know the Navy has groups of universities that share one NROTC in the area. Maybe there is a USAF ROTC nearby? Not the easiest, but perhaps an option.
I’m not trying to be negative but don’t trust the representative at the school. That is not definitive. If Teh rep says that it is possible, ask to see the instruction. Everything is guided by written instructions and is the only definitive answer. Even then, the truth changes over four years although that isn’t as big of a concern.
Lots of ROTC options including some of the Ivies. I know Navy, not Army but it is common to have one program per city. An example is Columbia has NROTC unit on campus but the actual training is elsewhere in NYC, I believe the NROTC at SUNY Maritime. Not the most convenient option, but it allows you to attend the college of your choice. LSU students go to NROTC at Southern University across town.
The question that the OP wants answered is, (paraphrase): If my daughter is accepted into the Army ROTC program since it is the only service program affiliated with her college, can she be commissioned in the Navy at the end of the program vs. the Army?
I would think that a commission requirement would be that you must take classes in your branch as well as complete the physical training with your branch. For the first 2 years, (unless you are on an ROTC scholarship), you do not owe a military obligation. During those years, you take classes in that particular branch of service and complete training specific to that branch.
While it may be possible to attend and major in nursing at one college or university and attend another that may offer a Navy ROTC, it will become very difficult and stressful to complete the classes and training once clinical rotations begin in nursing. Many schools that have a contract with a particular branch, work better with scheduling. VERY important is the rule that if you have an ROTC scholarship, you MUST attend the university that extends said scholarship.
You also serve at the pleasure of the branch of service and what their needs are in order to fulfill the mission. I highly doubt that a particular branch will offer scholarship and training specific to that branch, only to turn around and allow you to be commissioned by another branch.
The best course of action is to look at all schools with USAF ROTC and make a short list. Then the decision is whether the school of choice with Army ROTC is more important than USAF at another school.
Thanks all. That more or less affirms what I believed. I spend a short time as an AFROTC cadet, but this question did not come up. We had all 3 major services represented at UMinn. My brother is a USAFA grad and at least back then it was not all that difficult to be commissioned in another branch at the academy. It did not happen all that often because most cadets had grown to love their own branch.
Her school choice is rural and there are not other nearby cities. I know there are schools that have a ‘commuter’ type program where they go to a nearby university for ROTC, but this is not being sold as an option.
As much as I normally do not like the idea of taking a gap year, I think I may recommend it to her as a option. I think she should re-consider her choice of schools. She is past the point of getting some needed scholarship money.
One factor which accounts for the ease/difficulty of cross-service transfers is the degree of personnel demands one or both services or the military as a whole requires.
In eras when there’s drawdowns on demands for personnel…especially in service branches which seem more popular such as the USAF from what I’ve seen*, such cross service transfers may be much harder to come by as if no one from the more popular/service which is in the midst of more severe cutbacks wants to transfer to another service branch, then the cross service transfer is a non-starter.
Someone else here on CC posted a few years back her S was allowed to graduate from USAFA without completing his 5 year service commitment because the USAF was in the midst of cutting back its personnel due to budgetary constraints and other factors.
It also isn’t a recent phenomenon as I recalled reading that in 1934, the impact of the Great Depression and Isolationist attitudes on the Navy budget were so bad that only the top half of USNA graduates from that year were commissioned and the rest were graduated, but were effectively released from their service commitments because the Navy had no place for them at the time.
By the time a AFROTC friend at a university I was visiting on a break were in college in the mid-'90s, there was widespread talk among AFROTC cadets in his unit about personnel cutbacks and the possibility not everyone in his ROTC unit would be held to their 5 year commitment for that reason.
No ROTC like scholarship to cover most/all costs of undergrad
Drawdowns in personnel in USAF for the last several years means getting selected for OTS is not exactly an equivalent fallback as it may have been in the past.
OCS/OTS are used by branches to fill personnel shortfalls in certain officer MOSes. In short, OCS/OTS* grads may only get a choice after FSA and ROTC grads have made their choices.
One common complaint I've heard from colleagues who knew or were OTS grads was how much harder it was for them to get choice assignments such as a pilot training slot than USAFA or ROTC graduates.
Similarly, FSA graduates often get the first pick of choices before ROTC grads which was a major factor in why an older neighborhood kid/fellow HS alum turned down a full-ride FA package to MIT for Annapolis as he wanted to join the Nuclear Sub force which was so popular that it was highly competitive even for Annapolis grads back then.