Schools for a career in the military? (as a doctor or engineer)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I know there are special schools for people who want to go into a career in the armed forces, but I'm not sure how that works. Any and all help is appreciated.</p>

<p>Stats:
I'm currently a junior who lives in Illinois.</p>

<p>Classes (I'm only listing academic ones)</p>

<p>Freshman year:
Honors Physics PCB - A both semesters
Honors History of World Civilizations - A both semesters
Honors Freshman English - A both semesters
Advanced Algebra - A both semesters
Honors French 2 - A both semesters</p>

<p>Sophomore year:
Honors Sophomore English: B both semesters
Honors French 3: B, then A
Pre-Calculus - A then B
Honors Chemistry PCB - B both semesters
Sociology - 1 semester, A
Brain Studies - 1 semester, A</p>

<p>cumulative UW: 3.7 (estimate)</p>

<p>Junior year course load:
Honors Junior English
Honors French 4
AP US History
AP Calc AB
Honors Bio PCB
Honors Consumer Education 1st semester, Public Speaking the 2nd
My gym counts towards my academic GPA too - It's honors gym</p>

<p>Predicted Senior year course load:
AP Psych
AP Stats
AP Bio or Chem
AP French or French 5 if it's offered
Honors English: College Writing and Literature
I'd love to be a senior peer group leader if I can (you have to apply) - not academic though
Early bird gym to make it all fit</p>

<p>I haven't actually taken the ACT yet - I'm waiting until I can take a prep course at my school first. My PLAN test predicted a 28-30, but that's without any prep courses or workbooks.</p>

<p>My school doesn't rank, nor does it give percentiles. I'd estimate top 25%, maybe 15%, but I really have no idea.</p>

<p>Extra curricular activities:
Erika's Lighthouse club - 9th-now, hopefully a leadership position this year
PAWS animal club 9, 11 - couldn't do it last year b/c of a schedule conflict
French National Honors society - Inducted end of last year, and I'll be in it until I graduate
Volunteering at an after school center for kids: 3:30 to 6 a couple days a week - end of sophomore year, hoping to continue through senior year
Job as an assistant at an orthodontist's office a couple days a week, same hours as volunteering position - beginning of this school year, I'm hoping to keep it until college starts as I really like it.</p>

<p>Fields of interest:
Medical - Neuroscience, biology, that kind of stuff
Engineering - biological engineering, maybe agricultural</p>

2

<p>Do you mean with ROTC? Tons of schools have ROTC.</p>

3

<p>You need to check the individual websites of the Armed Forces. There you will find lists of schools that have ROTC or other special programs to recruit students and recent graduates, such as the U.S. Coast Guard Officer Student Inititiative (and other USCG programs).</p>

4

<p>I thought this was pretty obvious, but maybe not, so here goes.</p>

<p>If you’d like a career in the military and want to be an officer, there are a couple of routes you can pursue straight out of high school. Great benefits, but it involves a HUGE commitment. Make sure you want to do it before you sign on the dotted line. (Back in the Stone Age, I had one of these, but ultimately turned it down, as it just wasn’t me. I thought about it long and hard, but haven’t regretted not doing it. It was the wise decision - for me.)</p>

<p>You can apply to the service academies: West Point, Annapolis, Air Force Academy. (The Coast Guard Academy may be the same thing, I’m not sure.) Unless your father is a Medal of Honor winner, you’ll need a Congressional nomination. (There are a few other options for children of members of the military.) It’s all explained here for West Point:
[West</a> Point Admissions - Apply_Nominations](<a href=“http://www.westpoint.edu/admissions/SitePages/Apply_Nominations.aspx]West”>http://www.westpoint.edu/admissions/SitePages/Apply_Nominations.aspx)</p>

<p>If you get admitted, you get a four-year degree completely free, room and board included (The Academies are ranked very highly.) At the end, you’re commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant (or equivalent) and you have to serve 5 years active duty, 3 years inactive.</p>

<p>The other route is ROTC scholarships. They pay for full tuition, fees, and books, plus give you a monthly stipend in exchange for some form of eight year service commitment as an officer. (Room and board are on your own.) What’s interesting about these is, you can go to ANY college that has an ROTC program or is affiliated with one, you just have to get in. So you can go to colleges like WashU, Harvard, Penn, MIT, and Cornell for free, you just have to cover room and board. Pretty sweet deal IF you can handle the service commitment.</p>

<p>Applications are due shortly for Fall 2014, so you’ll want to get on that right away. For the service academies, it’s not to early to start applying for nominations for Fall 2015.</p>

5

<p>Note that there is a medical/dental/nursing/etc. school specifically for those who want to practice such professions in the military service: [About</a> USU - Uniformed Services University](<a href=“http://www.usuhs.edu/aboutusu.html]About”>http://www.usuhs.edu/aboutusu.html)</p>

6

<p>Just go to the Univ of Illinois. You don’t need a prestigious degree to be in the military unless you want to be some high officer, in which case you can go to one of the academies. But for most, local state school + ROTC is enough.</p>

7

<p>If they’ll pay for it, why not go to the best school that you can?</p>

8

<p>OK, first, I have to defend UofI, as its engineering school is one of the top rated in the nation. (No, I didn’t go there.)</p>

<p>Second, ROTC does not always pay for all tuition costs. They have competitive scholarships, and only some of them are full tuition. Most are capped at a certain value (pretty good, but maybe not a full-ride).</p>

<p>To the OP,
If you want to be a doctor in the military, I’d recommend a specific program/scholarship for that. The service academies do allow a few grads to go to med school, but that is a small minority of students. ROTC numbers will probably be fairly similar, except for medical related scholarship programs. </p>

<p>On the engineering side, I only really have a vague idea about the AF side of things. That said, many officer engineers move past the research and testing part of their careers pretty early. A lot of them become project managers and the like.</p>

9

<p>Both the Naval Academy and Coast Guard Academy have one week summer programs for students after their junior year to give then an idea what the academy is like. One mother told me that this starts the application process at the Naval Academy (but you still need to submit tests, transcripts and the recommendation). The Coast Guard Academy does not require a congressional recommendation.</p>

<p>As for becoming a doctor, there is an Army program I believe that takes college grads and sends them to medical school. The student is then obligated to serve one year for each year of scholarship (? - if you spend four years in medical school, you serve four years). I knew several people who did this.</p>

10

<p>If you do ROTC as an undergrad, it’s very hard to get an educational extension in order to go to medical school. ROTC’s job is to produce officers, not doctors. Only 10% who apply for the educational delay get it. If you’re OK with doing your 8 year commitment or whatever and then going to medical school, then ROTC is an option. To get it you compete with the whole country, not just your battalion. You also compete with all the future lawyers to get it.</p>

<p>The military also has a graduate program in medicine. You apply to it after undergrad. You go to medical school with everyone else except you have it all paid for. Then you match into a program the military needs. I think you do your residency at a civilian hospital. Then you have your service commitment after that. If you do both then commmitment is 10+ years if you get the delay.</p>

<p>I’d only recommend ROTC if you don’t want to be a doctor. You don’t need the educational delay as an engineer.</p>

11

<p>Also make sure you know what you’re signing up for with ROTC. You better be ready for 5am runs in full combat gear, taking military science classes, wearing your uniform to class, maintaining the military’s desired appearance, getting up early on weekends to go run, training sessions during the summer, etc.</p>

12

<p>And keep in mind that the Armed Forces and the U.S. Coast Guard operate their student programs for their specific needs, therefore some options may not be available every year. For example, the Coast Guard student officer initiative didn’t take any new inductees for at least two years recently. Apparently, they didn’t need any more officers-in-training for those class years. Also, the Coast Guard’s list of desired majors is fairly specific. Right now, they really want Electrical Engineers. Check the appropriate websites.</p>

13

<p>Forgot to address the med school option, but several people have touched on in. Back in the Stone Age (1980s), a family friend did the military/med school option. Did his undergrad on his own, then signed onto the military(Air Force)/med school option. Got med school paid for and did his service obligation as a pediatrician in California the whole way. Pretty nice gig, emerged with no debt, and was probably treated better than most civilian residents. Dropped into a local California practice without a hitch.</p>

<p>Basic rule is, you can get a guarantee for the military to pay for four years, either undergrad or grad. Anything else is very iffy. If your choice is medicine, be very careful about going the military route now, as you may be obligated to serve before you can get to med school, which makes for a very long road.</p>

14

<p>From what I understand there are a couple ways to get a career with the Military.

  1. As an Officer.
  • go to an Acadamy
  • ROTC at some universities
  1. enlist
  • work your way up the enlisted chain
  1. As a Governemt Civilian
  • get a STEM degree and work right along with with officers and enlisted as a civilian.
  • some Military supervise civilans & some civilians supervise military.
  • I’m sure there is a parallel course for medical and every other field the military offers.
  1. Contractor.</p>
15

<p>For the record, there are no enlisted Doctors in any military branch. You have to be an officer which requires a 4 year degree in almost all cases (There is one military school in the Nation left where you can become an officer after only 2 years of college)</p>

<p>Personally, I’d be tempted to look at the Academies (There are 5 of them by the way - The Merchant Marine’s Academy has not been listed in this thread although it is by far a very limited program). If that doesn’t work out for you, then ROTC is definitely worth the effort and time.</p>

16

<p>No matter how you spin it, it’s not easy to become a doctor in the military.</p>

17

<p>Good suggestion by Stanatedj. A few of the State Maritime Academies, maybe all of them, provide entree to the Naval or Coast Guard officer corps. Again, your choice of major is likely limited. At SUNY Maritime College in New York, all they offer is engineering. There would be no clear path to being a pre-med at the Maritime colleges because their life science curriculum tends to be quite thin. The exception might be marine science/oceanography.</p>

18

<p>it is understood that there are no enlisted DR’s in the military. The OP was asking about a career in the military. maybe as a DR or maybe as an engineer. a very interesting Gentleman use to coach my youth soccer team. He was an Air force Major at the time and was working as an engineer. I was not use to seeing Officers growing up so we asked him a lot of questions (and some of the Lts and Capts that would come and help him out). When he first started he enlisted and while he was enlisted he got his engineering degree and then went to some sort of officer school (I think it was OCS)…but that was just one example of a path that was giving him a “military career” as an engineer. I remember he had to move to a new area because he got promoted to become a Lt Colonel. … there are many ways to have a military career…
but as one post mentioned …no matter what its always hard to become a Doctor no matter where you are.</p>

19

<p>It is NOT easy to go from enlisted to officer though, so if the OP really wishes to be an officer, that’s extra time and OP may not even become an officer.</p>

20

<p>People here have covered the two most popular routes (ROTC and service academy).</p>

<p>By the way, you don’t need a scholarship to participate in ROTC. Obviously an ROTC scholarship is great as it pays for tuition, fees, and books, but if you don’t get one (and they are competitive) you can still do ROTC as a non-scholarship student and enter the military. However, ROTC incurs a service obligation even if you aren’t on scholarship.</p>

<p>I got an NROTC scholarship in college with stats similar to yours (I didn’t take it; I got another merit scholarship that covered my room and board, so I went with that one. I don’t regret it as I was able to get my PhD directly after college, but I still want to join the Navy).</p>

<p>USUHS is for graduate students.</p>

<p>I had some friends in college who were in ROTC. They’re both officers still, even though they have both completed their 4 year commitments. Yes, they did have to wear their uniform to class (twice a week), do watch duty, PT, all that stuff. But they were by and large normal college students, too. And they had guaranteed jobs after they graduated, lol!</p>

<p>Another option is a military college with a Corps of Cadets. This is kind of like a hybrid option: you go to a normal 4-year college, with civilian students on it (usually) but you are part of a large Corps of Cadets that is bigger than your average ROTC detachment. For example, Texas A&M has 2,250 cadets. There are 7 of these schools (one’s a women’s college):</p>

<p>Virginia Military Institute
The Citadel (Charleston, SC)
Norwich University (Norwich, VT)
Texas A&M University (College Station, TX)
Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets
University of North Georgia (Dahlonega, GA)</p>

<p>The thing about being in a Corps of Cadets is that if you are NOT on an ROTC scholarship, there is no commitment to the military (although you can complete the ROTC courses and seek a commission if that’s what you want). I don’t know all the particulars, so you’d have to contact each school. Virginia Tech and Texas A&M also have the advantage of having great engineering programs and being well-reputed universities. The Citadel is also a highly-ranked regional university.</p>

<p>Another route to becoming a doctor, at least, is going through your normal four years of college and then applying for the Health Professions Scholarship Program. One of the branches of the military covers your med school tuition and in exchange you give them 4 or 5 years as a physician. The Army, Navy, and Air Force all offer the HPSP; the monthly stipend and tuition coverage are pretty much the same, and in each branch you have to serve a certain amount of time (about 6-8 weeks) each summer in active duty training status. But each branch has little quirks that makes them different. (For example, I have heard - but only second-hand - that the Navy is more likely to pull you before you’ve completed a residency and place you as a General Medical Officer somewhere, which can be detrimental to your greater medical career). There’s quite a bit of information about this online, including individuals’ experiences with it.</p>

<p>Lastly, there’s also the USUHS, which has a medical school.</p>