<p>Can anyone tell me how life is as part of the corps of cadets? It's something I was looking into next year in college. I heard it's way better than the ROTC programs at UT. </p>
<p>Anyone able to fill me in on their mission, activities, and how many they commission per year? Looking at AFROTC and ROTC programs.</p>
<p>They have an amazing reputation- if you are interested, you should really look into "spend the night with the corps" (<a href="http://aggiecorps.tamu.edu/apps/snwc/frmdates.aspx%5B/url%5D">http://aggiecorps.tamu.edu/apps/snwc/frmdates.aspx</a>). There is also some good info here: <a href="http://www.aggiecorps.org/home/default.aspx%5B/url%5D">http://www.aggiecorps.org/home/default.aspx</a></p>
<p>Thanks relientr</p>
<p>My son is a fish (freshman) in the Corps at A&M. I think the Corps strength is a little less than 2,000. I don't know how many they commission each year.</p>
<p>Being in the Corps is pretty much an all-encompassing experience. You live, eat, study, and do most everything else for 4 years with your outfit. It is very difficult, and many freshmen quit. </p>
<p>The important thing to remember is that it's all a game. The upperclassmen require things of the freshmen that are impossible. Then, when the freshmen fail, the upperclassmen yell at them, give them push-ups, etc. That's just how it is.</p>
<p>For example, they have uniform drills in which they'll be ordered to go to their rooms and dress in Class B summers and be out in the hall in 5 minutes. Since they don't have enough time to dress properly, something's always wrong and they get yelled at and have to do push-ups. Then they have to run put on some other uniform, and repeat the whole process. </p>
<p>They are teaching the freshmen cadets to function under stress. As you can imagine, it's important for a military officer to be able to do that!</p>
<p>If you join the Corps of Cadets, you should definitely take a light load your first semester. The first semester in the Corps is crazy and it's hard to study as much as you need to. After that it gets more manageable.</p>
<p>As for activities, there are Corps trips, yell practices, and informal things (like on Halloween when they went down to fraternity row to smash pumpkins!). My son will be applying to go to either Freefall School (parachuting...held at the AF Academy) or Combat Survival School this next summer. Some cadets are involved in the fish Drill Team (which is featured in the opening credits of "A Few Good Men").</p>
<p>I would definitely recommend "Spend the Night With the Corps". You'll get a real feel for it, and you'll be able to ask specific questions to the Corps members.</p>