<p>Notre Dame has produced more Naval officers than any university with the exception of USNA.</p>
<p>Here is my hypothesis about why only one year to decide for NROTC, but two years for USNA. First I will point out that when I went through NROTC, we did have two years to decide. I suspect that NROTC had too many scholarship midshipmen who took the scholarship for two years and then dropped the scholarship but continued at the same college. In fact, I personally witnessed people who did just that. In other words, they got half their college paid for by the Navy but had no further obligation to the Navy. What a deal!</p>
<p>Because NROTC is so much easier than USNA, and because it is also easier to get a NROTC scholarship than to get a USNA appointment, there is very little downside to using the scholarship even when not sure of your career goals.</p>
<p>If a USNA midshipmen quits, he or she has to transfer if they want to continue their education. This can be a bit of a messy process – for example, not all academic credits will necessarily transfer.</p>
<p>USNA is very good at predicting whether a candidate will stay. They are correct 90% of the time. Perhaps NROTC is not as good at such predictions and, as I said, many NROTC scholarship middies, in the past, deliberately took advantage of the two year “test” period. Maybe NROTC got tired of giving money away.</p>
<p>(By the way, I know this is a really old thread from six years ago. But I think it is any interesting point, and I have wondered about this issue.)</p>