<p>The Army, Air Force and Navy give pretty decent scholarships and benefits if you're willing to make the commitment. I was wondering if anyone has personal experience or knows someone that was a cadet or midshipman on scholarship at a ROTC school? I am interested in going into the military at some point, and have decided that the service academies are not for me. ROTC is looking like an attractive option right now, but I haven't really heard any viewpoints beyond those of recruiters and the departments of military science at various schools. Another question I had was about the application process, when do you start it (chronologically speaking: fall of senior year?) and what do you do to initiate it (who do you get an application from; when do you do the DODMERB test)? Any help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>I am not an expert, but I have looked into what the Navy offers. #1 son who just graduated is shipping out with the Navy in December.</p>
<p>It looks like there are at least two non-academy routes, one is a program you start before you begin college, and the other is a "degree completion" program that you start after you are in college a year or two. </p>
<p>The gist of the latter program is that if you are making decent grades towards a degree the Navy is interested in, like engineering, they will pay generously for you to complete that degree in return for a post-graduation service commitment.</p>
<p>All the services are different, and in each one there are a lot of permutations, and the lower level guys at the neighborhood recruiting offices try to help but are not the best sources of information for the college/officer track stuff. Their expertise, which is astounding, is in helping high school graduates enlist. It helps if you do your research ahead of time on the internet, then go in with specific questions the recruiters can check out for you. <a href="http://usmilitary.about.com/%5B/url%5D">http://usmilitary.about.com/</a> is a great resource.</p>
<p>ROTC applications should be done in the EARLY fall of your senior year. Some of the application cut-offs are in November.
The Air Force application is online...I don't know about the others.</p>
<p>Recruiters are NOT good sources of information for Academies/ROTC! They are great if you have a question about military life, etc.</p>
<p>You should post in the Service Academy Forums section. There are a couple people currently/formerly in ROTC there.</p>
<p>mrhazel44, My S is currently a soph. in college on a NROTC scholarship. He started his application process in the summer after his Jr. year of high school. I believe he submitted it in Aug. or early Sept. of Sr. year. He got the letter saying he had the scholarship (4 yr) in Nov. The application is online at the NROTC website. You don't do the DODMERB until after you get the letter saying you've gotten the scholarship. I'll be glad to answer any more questions you may have.</p>
<p>Hi there. My son graduated In June with an NRTOC scholarship was commissioned at the same time, and now is serving on the USS Lake Champlain in San Diego. He is doing great! It was an amazing day to see him commissioned, and he has met some wonderful young men and women from all over the country. He had a full scholarship (OOS UWash) with a stipend, but he paid his own housing. He went on a summer tour each summer, which included San Diego, Hawaii and Japan. </p>
<p>He is working very very hard on the ship, and will be deployed (we don't know where) next year sometime. He will serve 4 years. Right now getting qualified, learning so much and saving money. It has been a great experience for him. I can honestly say that his motivation was not entirely money, he wanted to serve as well and it seemed like a good way to do both. Good luck in making your decision.</p>
<p>I am grateful for all of the help so far. I have heard mostly about Naval ROTC, but unfortunately the two programs that interest me more are AF and Army ROTC. I am assuming that the application procedures are similar if not the same for all three? And also, is there a set date by which you hear that you have won the scholarship? Again, your thoughts are appreciated.</p>
<p>Only know about NROTC be would guess the apps. are similiar. With Navy, there was not a set date when you heard. I think the board that reviews the apps. has several different times throughout the year that they review so it just depends on when you apply and which session your app. gets reviewed in.<br>
A plug for NROTC...if your interested in flying, I have heard that your chances are actually better in NROTC than AFROTC (due to so many of the flight school slots going to AFA grads). Also NROTC does not restrict what you major in the way AFROTC does. If yuo have more questions, ask away.</p>
<p>afrotc.com has a lot of info about Air Force stuff. If you need more info, there are regional reps. you can call (listed on the site). I think the apps. are different, but do not know for sure. The scholarship review boards meet at set times. Depending on when you turn in your app., the next board will review it and release their decision shortly after.</p>
<p>When you have won the national level scholarship in any of the three, do you then have to apply to the specific school's ROTC program (department of military science) or are you automatically in if you get accepted to that school? This is a question that I have been wondering about, and it seems fairly important. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>If you want a 4-year scholarship, act early. Otherwise, you will have until late in your college sophomore year to enroll in the ROTC program. In the meantime you can take a couple classes in the military science department.
Of course you'll be more competitive for a 1- ,2-, or 3-year scholarship if you show interest and participate early. (I had no interest before freshman year, became interested when I took an orienteering class, and managed to win a 3-year scholarship at the end of my freshman year.)</p>
<p>Other options-- wait until you graduate and enlist for Officer Candidate School. Or enlist and serve in the reserves or NG for education benefits. The drawbacks of this option are that a drill weekend during finals makes studying hard and you risk interrupting your schooling for several months or a year or longer for a deployment. (That risk would have been rather small before the Iraq war, but is now quite real.) Also drill and annual training obligations can interfere some employment and internship opportunities.</p>
<p>mrhazel44, On the NROTC scholarship app., S had to list 5 schools in order of preference that he would be willing to attend if given a NROTC schoalrship. I believe each batallion has a set number that they can accept each year. When S got the letter saying he had been given the scholarship it also said he had been assigned to NC State NROTC batallion which was his first choice on the app. So he didn't have to personally apply to the NCSU batallion he was assigned to it because it was his first choice and since he got his scholarship fairly early they had room for him.</p>
<p>The letter also said if you did not get assigned to your first choice or if there was a reason you could not go to the school you were assigned (say you put Duke University as your first choice but then you were not accepted to the University) the you could appeal the assignment and maybe get it changed to a different school. </p>
<p>The ROTC scholarship has nothing to do with gaining acceptance to the college you choose. You have to do that on your own. So it's a good idea to put as your top choices, colleges that you are pretty confident you will be accepted to.</p>
<p>Also if you do not get a ROTC scholarship but still want to be in the program, you can contact the Military Science Professor of the program at your desired school and ask permission to do the "college program". You do everything the same as the scholarship students, you just aren't getting the money. If you do well your first semester/year, you can reapply for a scholarship. I think the odds of getting those are pretty high if you have done well.</p>
<p>There is also an opportunity on the Naval ROTC application to explain why your first-choice college is your first choice. My son used a lot of space filling that one out!</p>
<p>I'm an Army ROTC cadet on a 4-year scholarship and I'm really enjoying it.</p>
<p>As far as applications go, AF has a nationwide scholarship program where you fill out one application to receive a scholarship that is applicable at any school.</p>
<p>Army, however does it on a school-by-school basis. You have to indicate which schools you are interested in when you fill out the application, which I recommend you do as soon as possible, you can always change it. Then generally, the recruiting officer from that school will contact you, but it would not hurt at all for you to contact them first, making sure you're interested and talking with you a little bit. Then, the final step in being put in the running for a Army ROTC scholarship at that school is to interview with the PMS (Professor of Military Science), either in person or on the phone. If you can't do it with the PMS at the school you are interested in because of distance, and they don't do phone interviews, you could do an interview with a PMS at a school more local to you, and that PMS will put the notes from your interview into the system for all other PMS's to view.</p>
<p>Each school has a certain amount of money they can give each year in scholarships, and it's certainly possible that you could receive scholarships from multiple schools, or from some schools, but not others.</p>
<p>I'm biased, but Army usually gives better scholarships. Air Force's scholarships don't cover all of the costs of school unless you're on of those lucky 5% who get that top scholarship, but that might not even cover the cost of an expensive private school.</p>
<p>Like my situation. Air Force's maximum scholarship is $120000 (and that's almost exclusively for Computer, Software, or Mechanical Engineers, or Meteorologists) which doesn't even cover 4 years at my school, where the cost of education is $40000+ a year. I know several people in AFROTC at my school and none of them have the big scholarship. ON the other hand, I know there's about 5 people in my class on full scholarships that cover full tuition, room and board, book money, and monthly stipends. Basically, I'm going to college for free. Plus, the Air Force guys prance around in their dress uniform and learn about paperwork for their labs, whereas we get to get down and dirty, simulate tactical situations, etc...of course, it all depends on your particular program, everyone does it differently. My school is fortunate enough to have some nice woodlands and grassy areas on/adjacent to campus to do this stuff in, urban colleges are not so fortunate.</p>
<p>As far as hearing about the scholarship, it'll usually be a few weeks after you do your interview with the PMS at that school (for Army) or the interview with the recruiting officer (you only do one interview for the AF scholarship). You also need to schedule a DoDMERB physical at a local military facility, you can google DoDMERB to get more info about that</p>
<p>As long as service in the armed forces is something you want to do, go for it.</p>
<p>If you have any more specific questions, feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>I know this thread has been inactive for a while, but I wanted to ask anyone involved with ROTC what a typical day is like. How often are the PT sessions? How many military and leadership labs are you required to go to, and when do those normally occur? Do you find that the stipend is able to cover living expenses sufficiently? Did they make you cut your hair, and if so, how short? Any answers are greatly appreciated.</p>