My son received these scholarships as 4-year scholarship at different colleges. He has to choose where to go now. I’d like to know each branch’s pros/cons. He will be majoring in electrical engineering. We are also in need for room/board. I’d like to know how other recipients had met their needs. About NROTC, how intense the swimming training is?
Which branch is the “ROTC”?
Somewhat confused on the question. Your son applied for, wrote essays for, interviewed for and was selected for three different ROTC scholarships and hasn’t told you what the differences are or why he would prefer one over the other?
See the following for a thorough description of the NROTC swimming standards. I would call it rigorous.
http://depts.washington.edu/uwnrotc/drupal_new/sites/all/swimqual/SwimGuidelines.pdf
Regarding the branch differences, are you saying that your son got four year scholarships from: Navy, Army, and Air Force?
He applied for all 3 branches and received 4-year ROTC, AROTC, and NROTC scholarships at different collges. Before he decides one branch and a collge, I’d like to know pros/cons about each branch and a career after graduation.
Thank you.
To “NROTCgrad”, as I mentioned earlier, my son will be majoring in electrical engineering. Where could he be working after college in Navy with his major? How long will he be on a ship a year?
And to your question, yes he got scholarships from Navy, Airforce and Army. As a NROTC grad, what do you think the best thing/benefits can my son get in NROTC than in other branches? Thank you.
In the Navy, he can expect to follow one of three paths: 1) **Surface Line/b; 2) Submarines; or 3) **Aviation/b. ALL OF THEM require significant service on a ship. At least half of a naval career is spent assigned to ships. Everything else is called “shore duty.” Shore assignments are typically shorter than ship assignments. When assigned to a ship, he would spend about half the time actually out at sea. So, about one-fourth of a Navy career is literally spent on the ocean.
Yes, there are other jobs in the Navy, but they are rarely given to NROTC graduates. It is very unlikely that your son would do any real electrical engineering work. Nonetheless, they would love for him to pursue a career in submarines.
What is better about the Navy? Well that depends on what a person wants. For example, I actually liked being out at sea, but many people did not. The Navy does have the fastest career advancement. Which is probably because more people quit the Navy; partially because of sea duty, but also because many Navy job skills are transferable to civilian life.
The Army has a whole lot of options… last time I counted the Army had 16 major career paths (not including specialties like medicine and law) and all are open to ROTC graduates. If he real wants to use his electrical engineering education, he might look into the Army Corps of Engineers, although they are predominantly civil engineers (I think).
I know very little about Air Force careers, other than they are a little more likely to spend their nights in a real bed (as opposed to an Army tent, or a Navy “rack”).
Unless P-3s, P-8s and E-6s now have tailhooks, this isn’t entirely accurate. But point taken: if you are in the Navy, odds are that you will be going to sea.
About room and board…
Some colleges provide a room and board grant to students with an ROTC scholarship. For an example, see the following page for Boston University:
http://www.bu.edu/finaid/types-of-aid/scholarships-grants/merit-based/rotc-scholarships/
The Navy should have assigned your son to a university. Either that school provides such grants or it does not. If you tell me which school the Navy assigned your son to, I can tell you what they offer (if anything).
The Army often links its scholarships to specific colleges, but occasionally you can shop around. If this is possible for your son, I hope that he was accepted to a college with room and board grants.
The Air Force lets you shop around, but most scholarships are limited to in-state public universities. Nonetheless, some state schools do provide room and board grants.
Also, some grants are competitive, while others are automatic to all ROTC scholarship recipients. Some are for all room and board, but others only cover part of the expense.
And more difficult to get active duty these days after graduation…at least army wise. A friends son was pushed to the Reserves, and he was a very good student, so parents chose to pay back his rotc $40k scholarship and he now will enlist instead of going the officer route just so he could get active duty. Shocking I know!
He has 2 schools for Army ROTC scholarship, Case Western and Duke. He got the admission at Case but not at Duke yet (it’ll be 4/1). What if he accepts Duke now but can’t get the admission, then can he trasnfer the ROTC scholarship to Case later? Will be the scholarship still available at Case?
First, congratulations to your son. Two great schools.
The Army should have told you what the deadline is for accepting these scholarships. I think you have until April, but you should make sure. Don’t decide until you have to. Definitely do not accept the Duke ROTC scholarship until admitted. CWRU might be the better financial choice anyway. vvvv
The Army ROTC website says this about Case Western:“Case Western Reserve University allows merit based scholarships through the University to be used towards room and board in conjunction with an ROTC Scholarship.” So, if your son got any merit scholarships from CWRU, then he should be able to apply that money to room and board. However, double check this with the CWRU financial aid department.
Be aware that Army ROTC activities are actually held at John Carroll University, which is about 5 miles from CWRU. I assume that taking the bus is the best way to get there without a car. For what it is worth, that part of Cleveland is pretty safe and the neighborhoods between CWRU and JCU are very expensive. He could ride a bicycle in good weather. (I live in Ohio and visited both of those campuses this past summer.)
Duke does not offer ROTC room and board grants. Its ROTC is on campus.
Thank you, NROTCgrad. I really appreciate your time. The deadline for Army is 3/1.
March 1st? Wow. That is surprising, and unfortunate. Unless you are feeling really confident about Duke (with an acceptance rate of only 12%), going with CWRU is really all you have with Army.
You might contact Duke and tell them about the Army ROTC scholarship and ask if there is any way to speed up their decision. They might be willing to do that.
My guess, and only a guess, is that because the Army only has a limited number of scholarships, and your son is tying up two of them, it wants wants to free up one of those to give to some other person.
My S had a NROTC scholarship. The state university that he attended allowed him to use his two university merit scholarships along with the NROTC scholarship. Between the merit and the NROTC scholarships, all his college costs were covered.
Also, S has spent very little time on ships. He is a Special Operations-EOD officer.
@PackMom and @MiddKid86
Thanks for pointing out some of the rare exceptions to the normal scheme. These exceptions are almost certainly less than 10% of NROTC commissions, and perhaps much lower. Another possibility is Naval Intelligence. I had an NROTC friend who commissioned directly into navy intel, but then again his father was an admiral. So, I think that helped. Actually, even intel officers spend some time on ships; often on an aircraft carrier with an admiral’s staff.
I don’t know about “rare.” P-3/P-8/EP-3 squadrons are some of the largest deploying squadrons in Naval Aviation, with relatively large wardrooms. Aviation designated officers (pilots and Naval Flight Officers) make up the largest group of unrestricted line officers, more numerous than Surface Warfare Officers and Submariners. A sampling of winging classes from last year shows the following numbers for USN pilots and NFOs going to a first sea tour in a land-based squadron (P-3, P-8, E-6, EP-3: likely won’t spend a day at sea on a ship):
Pilot - 70 out of 275 will go to one of the above referenced type of squadron (25%)
NFO - 27 out of 67 will go to one of the above referenced type of squadron (40%)
The basic statistics are roughly:
- 7,000 surface warfare officers
- 3,700 submarine officers
- 10,000 aviation officers
- <400 NSW/EOD officers
@MiddKid86 shows that a total of 28% of aviation officers will be in land based squadrons. Aviators are 42% of unrestricted line naval officers, which means about 12% of unrestricted line naval officers will be aviators in land based squadrons. A little more than the 10% I offered.
NSW/EOD is far smaller – less than 400 officers. So, maybe 15% of unrestricted line officers will almost be never be on a ship. Definitely a distinct minority, if not quite rare.
In very general terms, the Navy probably has the most requirements in-school and the least opportunity to work as an electrical engineer out of school. As pointed out above, most commissioned officers are naval aviators, and the least are SEAL/EOD (that’s underwater demolition experts: Explosive Ordnance Disposal). The other half are not really working in electrical engineering either.
Army had the least in-school requirements (Things may have changed, but years ago, Navy had 2 drills a week, Army had two drills a year- one per semester; and Air Force had something like one a week or one a month). However, the best opportunity to work in a research environment upon graduation is possibly in the Air Force (AFRL in Albuquerque, Dayton, or Eglin).
I agree.
An ROTC curriculum will not teach any future military officer what he/she needs to know to excel in a specific warfare specialty. It should, however, provide the building blocks necessary to become a competent officer in the United States military. You won’t learn how to fly an F/A-18, C-17 or Apache, or drive an Abrams tank or Arleigh Burke class destroyer, or launch a torpedo or run a S9G nuclear reactor on a Virginia class attack submarine, before being commissioned. So an ROTC grad who majors in electrical engineering will very likely not be a practicing electrical engineer, but will very likely put electrical engineering knowledge to good use in whatever field he or she ends up in. And probably have a lot more fun doing it than an electrical engineer in the civilian world.