Two-year scholarship chances

Lizzy

5-Year Member
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May 27, 2011
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My daughter is a rising sophomore in college. While in high school I tried to encourage her to apply to the service academies or at least ROTC. At the time her vision of the military was scary to her, to say the least. Now, two years later, she wants to join ROTC. Since high school she has had friends and family enlist and they all love the service and she has met some female friends in ROTC who also love it. She has decided to pursue a two year scholarship with hopes of being sent to PA school after undergrad and then making a career of the army.

I think she has very high credentials: high school GPA: 4.0 UW, 5.56 weighted; SAT: 1520/2320; 4 year varsity swimmer, a variety of other involvement activities, volunteering and self-employment (web design). She had a successful freshman year at college finishing with a 4.0 in biomedical sciences with honor's level classes, is an officer in her sorority, swam on an inter mural team, volunteered and is a member of three honor societies. If she voluntarily gets involved her sophomore year would she have good chances of getting the two-year scholarship. I guess I am curious to know if they give many of those scholarships out now-a-days.
 
My daughter is a rising sophomore in college. While in high school I tried to encourage her to apply to the service academies or at least ROTC. At the time her vision of the military was scary to her, to say the least. Now, two years later, she wants to join ROTC. Since high school she has had friends and family enlist and they all love the service and she has met some female friends in ROTC who also love it. She has decided to pursue a two year scholarship with hopes of being sent to PA school after undergrad and then making a career of the army.

I think she has very high credentials: high school GPA: 4.0 UW, 5.56 weighted; SAT: 1520/2320; 4 year varsity swimmer, a variety of other involvement activities, volunteering and self-employment (web design). She had a successful freshman year at college finishing with a 4.0 in biomedical sciences with honor's level classes, is an officer in her sorority, swam on an inter mural team, volunteered and is a member of three honor societies. If she voluntarily gets involved her sophomore year would she have good chances of getting the two-year scholarship. I guess I am curious to know if they give many of those scholarships out now-a-days.



The first thing she will need to do is contact the Recruiting Officer (ROO) with the ROTC at the college she is attending. Since she did not participate in ROTC her freshmen year she may be able to double up on the MS classes during her sophomore year if the school's battalion allows that. The other option is participating in ROTC her sophomore year and then applying for LTC (Leadership Training Course) which takes place during the summer after her sophmore year, this course would catch her up and take the place of the ROTC classes she would have taken freshmen year.

The bottom line is that she needs to talk with the ROTC department at the school soon. She may be able to apply for a 3 year scholarship if it is not to late.

As far as her chances, she sure has the grades for it, the other factors will be leadership and athletics which she seems to have.

Scholarships are very competitive right now due to the number of applicants and the current budget issues not to mention the future draw down in the military. I wouldn't waste any time getting in touch with the ROTC at her school, you will need to get the ball rolling.
 
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Thank you for your reply. Yes, she is interested in the army. She has just finished putting together a resume and a letter to the AROTC Major in charge of scholarships. She is out tonight, but plans to send out an email tomorrow. In addition she has started working on her PT requirements. She has to improve on her pushups. She does plan to ask a local recruiter to test her with PT training so she can bring those test scores with her when she returns to college in the fall. As for leadership she did have a few leadership positions in high school and is an officer in her sorority. She does give off a mature confident air, not cocky, just very self assured and last she isn't scared of hard work. She is the happiest when she is challenged. I guess she will just need to go for it and try it. I really wish she had applied in high school. As a high school teacher I have seen too many smart but unmotivated boys, not all-just too many, get four year scholarships.

Would anyone know if being a non-minority female helps since the army has more males in it. Thank you.
 
She needs to enroll in ROTC class next fall. There are no guarentees that she will get a scholarship, but if she takes ROTC class and goes to LTC next summer she will have a very good chance of becoming an Army Officer when she graduates. She will also have a very good chance of getting paid $450 a month as a junior and $500 a month as a senior. if all she wants is a scholarship, it will be very difficult for her. I don't want to create any false hope, and I don't know what school she attends, and how your daughters year group looks at that school, but I have a feeling that LTC scholarships may be plentiful. So...have her sign up for the class. If she doesn't sign up for the class she has no chance of getting the scholarship.
 
Thank you for your reply. Yes, she is interested in the army. She has just finished putting together a resume and a letter to the AROTC Major in charge of scholarships. She is out tonight, but plans to send out an email tomorrow. In addition she has started working on her PT requirements. She has to improve on her pushups. She does plan to ask a local recruiter to test her with PT training so she can bring those test scores with her when she returns to college in the fall. As for leadership she did have a few leadership positions in high school and is an officer in her sorority. She does give off a mature confident air, not cocky, just very self assured and last she isn't scared of hard work. She is the happiest when she is challenged. I guess she will just need to go for it and try it. I really wish she had applied in high school. As a high school teacher I have seen too many smart but unmotivated boys, not all-just too many, get four year scholarships.

Would anyone know if being a non-minority female helps since the army has more males in it. Thank you.

Sounds like she is getting started on the right foot.

Being female really has no benefit scholarship wise and definatly is not a negative.

I have an older son that just completed his 3rd year in AROTC and a younger son that will start this fall. Both received the 4 year scholarship. I do have to agree that there are some that seem to receive the scholarship but tend to struggle due to a lack of motivation once they start school and ROTC, not many but a few, they don't tend to last past the first year. Of the new cadets in my older son's class there were two that dropped the program the first semester, one male and one female, both looked great on paper but just didn't like all the extra work ROTC adds to school.

Good luck to your daughter.

Oh and one more thing....Listen to everything Clarksonarmy has to say, he is a ROO from Clarkson University and is a wealth of information.
 
The chances of getting a 2-year scholarship vary with 2 things - first the funding at the unit (in Clarkson's unit it sounds like there isn't much there these days, but other units do have them - it is very campus specific YMMV)and second how she ranks with other scholarship prospects.

It sounds like your daughter achieved a lot in HS. That was great, however the PMS' are interested in how your daughter will score coming out of ROTC in their unit where HS is not a factor. If her grades are still good and the ECs are good, if she busts her rear participating in ROTC (volunteer for anything she can) and does well catching up in her MS studies (many units will allow a sharp cadet to double up), she will have a great chance to score any campus scholarship that may be available in a year.

Even if the scholarship isn't there, doing well should allow her to contract and at least pick up the stipend alluded to earlier. And doing well will be critical if she wants to be competitive for extra opportunities after commissioning like grad school. Everything in the Army is competitive and grades are about 40% of it.

Gojack has posted some great links in other threads that explain the weighting of ROTC graduates for branching and other opportunities at commissioning time. Look for them and feel free to ask questions.

It is OK that she didn't see what military life was about until recently. If she embraces ROTC, it will embrace her. Welcome aboard!
 
I thank everyone for their replies. She understands that she may not receive a scholarship even if she does everything she can to be the best, but she hopes that even if she doesn't get a scholarship she will still be able to get a commission. She will try to make contact with the Recruiting Major this week and request guidance on everything she needs to do to gain acceptance to the Leadership Training next summer and eventually gain a commission.

One thing I know about her is that when she sets her mind to something she does everything she can to be the best. I am also glad she now views the Army as a place of opportunity to serve and grow instead of a scary dictatorship. I think the Army officers who get to know her over the next year will also see this.
 
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