MOS After Graduation

TDerderian

5-Year Member
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May 5, 2010
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Hi everybody. I just finished up my junior year in high school and am in the application process to service academies and ROTC. I do not have my mind set on a specific branch, although I am only applying for an Army an Marine Corps ROTC scholarship. It is very unlikely that I will get into a service academy. My question is about getting your top job choice after graduation. Do the senior military college graduates (The Citadel, Norwich, Virginia Tech, etc.) usually get priority over those ROTC students from civilian colleges? I want to be either an Army Ranger or Marine Corps Infantryman and I know the MOS selection process takes into account your college resume, but I do not want to go to a civilian college then get stuck with an office-type job in the military. If anyone can give me any advice I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
 
Hi everybody. I just finished up my junior year in high school and am in the application process to service academies and ROTC. I do not have my mind set on a specific branch, although I am only applying for an Army an Marine Corps ROTC scholarship. It is very unlikely that I will get into a service academy. My question is about getting your top job choice after graduation. Do the senior military college graduates (The Citadel, Norwich, Virginia Tech, etc.) usually get priority over those ROTC students from civilian colleges? I want to be either an Army Ranger or Marine Corps Infantryman and I know the MOS selection process takes into account your college resume, but I do not want to go to a civilian college then get stuck with an office-type job in the military. If anyone can give me any advice I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
TD: The Army gives SMC graduates a guarantee that they will get active duty if the Professor of Military Science recommends it. That is really the only tangible guarantee that you get over a graduate from a traditional ArmyROTC program. For your branch assignment - it's by order of merit list across all ROTC programs. You can however pretty much guarantee your branch selection if you agree to extend your active duty service obligation (a concept that has it's good and bad points. You get in and it's not what you thought- you have that much more active duty time to serve. But if it's really your idea of heaven on earth- it was a no cost insurance policy.).

The best way to ensure that you get your #1 branch choice wherever you go- bust a gut to be the best you can be in PT, Leadership, and grades. The higher you are on the OML- the better the likelihood of getting your branch.

What you will get from an SMC? A 24hour/day -7 day/week Leadership lab which will be heavy on managing physical and emotional stress and major time constraints. Combine that with bonds that you will develop with your classmates that are closer than you can imagine.
 
Here are a couple things to keep in mind:

40% of your OML score is academics. If you are really worried about what branch you will go into when you graduate, don't go to MIT and major in physics with three minors, unless you are really smart. find a school and major you will be academically successful with.

Bruno must be an academy grad. ROTC will give you the same leadership experience, but the difference between ROTC and academies and SMC's is your day to day life is not structured, and you'll have to figure out how to solve the day to day challenges of time managment, and socialization, and how to solve out of the ordinary challenges on your own. There won't be a TAC or squad leader to tell you what to do every day. (can you tell I'm an ROTC product).

You will not be an Army Ranger right out of college, no matter where you graduate. If you want to be an Army Ranger you need to attend airborne and ranger school, and do well where ever you serve. Your best chance of making it to a Ranger Battalion is to be an infantry officer, and you won't even start thinking about a Ranger regiment until you are a 1st Lieutenant. There are only 3 Ranger regiments in the Army.

whether you have a desk job or not only has a little to do with what branch you are in. You will do many different jobs as an Army Officer, and the job we do is usually an outdoor sport. The personnel officer in an infantry battalion is usually a junior captain or 1st lieutenant who is wearing infantry branch. He may spend a little bit of his time behind a desk. The transportation officer, or logistics officer, who you would think would spend much of their time behind a desk is probably leading convoys and spending a much more exciting time than expected.

You are going to be a senior in high school. i would suggest you keep an open mind. Talk to as many soldiers and vets as you can, ask questions, and take everything they say with a grain of salt. A military career can be just about anything you want it to be, whether you are jumping out of planes with the 82nd Airborne, riding around in tanks with the 1st Cav, or engineering signal networks with the signal corps.

Best of luck.
 
You will not be an Army Ranger right out of college, no matter where you graduate. If you want to be an Army Ranger you need to attend airborne and ranger school, and do well where ever you serve. Your best chance of making it to a Ranger Battalion is to be an infantry officer, and you won't even start thinking about a Ranger regiment until you are a 1st Lieutenant. There are only 3 Ranger regiments in the Army.

There is only one Ranger Regiment, the 75th Ranger Regiment. There are three battalions of deployable Rangers, plus the 4th Ranger Training Battalion.

i believe Bruno is a VMI grad, not a service academy grad.
 
For the Marine Corps, does your college performance matter at all or is your MOS based solely on your performance at The Basic School?
 
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