<p>What are the non-scholarship advantages to joining ROTC in college if you are considering military service? DD (a college sophomore) is exploring this option.</p>
<p>ROTC teaches a student a lot about life in the military. From uniforms to tactics, ROTC will introduce her to the military. I’d be hard pressed to come up with something that could provide more information for her to consider while making her decision.</p>
<p>It’s also about comradery. Like the business world, having a successful career in the military means networking (Marines call it “sharing gouge.”) Once your daughter is in the military, she will have many friends and colleagues in her community but thanks to her ROTC days, she will also have connections to other communities. </p>
<p>For example, my spouse knows a lot of aviators; from flight school to combat, they are together a lot…more than they are with their families. But his friends in Infantry and other specialties are from ROTC or Officer Candidate School. The higher an officer moves in the rankings, the more important it is to understand the big picture of how all of the communities work together. </p>
<p>I wish her the best of luck in her decision and thank her for considering serving her country.</p>
<p>Chances are, if she does well, she can earn a scholarship while in ROTC.
A big plus to completing ROTC during college is that she would not have to do Officer Candidate School after graduation.
note: S1 did NROTC. Other military branches’ ROTC programs might be different.</p>
<p>Thank you for your quick responses. I have so much to learn! Could someone clarify how ROTC participation vs joining after college differ?</p>
<p>If a student completes the ROTC program while in college, they are commissioned as military Officers upon graduation. If a college grad. wishes to join the military as an Officer, they must apply and be accepted to Officer Candidate School. OCS is a 12 week course where they learn all things military and how to be an officer. It’s pretty intense.
The chance of acceptance into OCS differs depending on which military branch is chosen.</p>
<p>It is not uncommon for college grads who aren’t interested in being an officer to go the enlisted route. There is a huge pay grade difference between officers and enlisted.</p>
<p>If she does NROTC (NavyROTC) to become a Marine, then she will be able to complete Officer Candidate School (OCS) in the summer. That is called “bulldog” and it is six weeks. If she joins after graduation, she will have to go to OCS first and it is ten weeks long. As has been mentioned, it’s intense. They are learning a lot while being continually physically trained and tested. </p>
<p>I’m not sure how that works in the other services but I would assume it’s something similar. </p>
<p>There are those who will tell you that ROTC officers are the best. Or that the best officers come from the military academies. Or whatever their bias is. The fact is that the best officers in today’s military come into the service all different ways. So don’t let her be swayed by that argument.</p>
<p>Yeah, that 12 week OCS thing came from an Army site.
If you do NROTC and go Navy, there are summer experiences/cruises but not OCS.</p>
<p>There is another reason I can think of to go ROTC as you say. As an employer, I can tell you that if your child decides not to make the military a career (I don’t know whether with a non scholarship student if you go ROTC you owe the military time or not, I believe scholarship students do) having that background is generally a plus, it will count well when they go for that first job, the discipline and the learning and such in an organization should stand them well in standing out among other similarly qualified candidates.</p>
<p>Non-scholarship students have to sign a contract in their junior year that requires them to serve.<br>
I posed the OP’s question this a.m. to my S who did NROTC (scholarship). He said he would definitely not have done it without the scholarship. NROTC took up a LOT of his time in college. He said it was too much work to have done it for free when there are several other ways of becoming an officer. He also said it was tougher to join ROTC without a scholarship. He had 2 non-scholarship guys in his class of 27. I don’t think either of them actually commissioned…less than half of the orginal class did.</p>
<p>His friend who is now an officer in the Marines went to a college that didn’t have NROTC.
He did the Platoon Officers Course. He spent 6 weeks training the summers after soph. and junior yrs. S said his friend also got a nice bonus when he signed on for the program. </p>
<p>S also says the Army will pay back most/all of college expense for those college grads who enlist and then go to OCS. </p>
<p>I think the National Guard also has some sort of college program that leads to a commision but don’t remember the details.</p>