Basic AROTC Questions

I am new to this an am currently a junior. All Honors and APs , 2130 SAT (first sitting) Varsity letter, Class VP, Black Belt Karate (teach 3 nights per week, National Honor Society, Top 10%

I plan on applying to several schools next year and would like to get the AROTIC application in early.

If one is awarded a scholarship is it typically to just one school or is a choice given?

If you apply early, and are awarded a scholarship is there a deadline to accept?

What happens if you have not heard from whether the school has accepted you yet but ROTC has offered scholarship choices with deadlines? I would like to apply to my state university and a few very competitive private colleges. Would it be a good strategy just to list my top three dream choices

How many school choices should you put on the application? And why?

Any guidance and input would be appreciated

Hey man,

Sounds like you will be in good standing with the AROTC board. To answer your questions...

1. you list about 8 schools on your initial application. Typically, or at least in my case, you are given scholarships to 3 of the 8 schools you listed.

2. Yes, for instance, for the first board the deadline to accept was December 1st. (I believe). ALWAYS ACCEPT!! You can always change your decision later on, but be sure you accept it to one of the schools you were awarded it to.

3. List three schools you will go to for sure. For instance, listing Harvard would be a risky thing to do because you might not get accepted. Id list one or two of the big schools and then another couple schools you are confident you will get into and would still be happy going to. (if thats the plan you are going to follow through with). Don't list three schools that are extremely competitive to get into and risk the chance of having an ROTC scholarship to three schools you didn't get into. (worst case scenario).

4. I believe that you are given about 8 school slots on your application.

WrestlingX said:

If one is awarded a scholarship is it typically to just one school or is a choice given?

If you apply early, and are awarded a scholarship is there a deadline to accept?

What happens if you have not heard from whether the school has accepted you yet but ROTC has offered scholarship choices with deadlines? I would like to apply to my state university and a few very competitive private colleges. Would it be a good strategy just to list my top three dream choices

How many school choices should you put on the application? And why?

Any guidance and input would be appreciated

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These are good questions. It would be helpful for you to read through the ROTC section of this forum to get a feel for how the process has worked/is working.

Note that it changes from year to year and often there's not much official communication on these changes- so what is happening now or happened last year may or may not apply to your application. So take answers with a grain of salt!

-currently some recipients are getting 1 school, others are getting 2 or more

-there is a deadline to accept, typically about 1 mo. from when the letter is received

-often this deadline is before an acceptance to the school. Some ways of working with this include
* applying early action to one or more schools
* submitting the ROTC application a bit later, i.e. not in time for the Oct. board
* accepting the offer and attempting to transfer the scholarship if not accepted by the school

Obviously the above strategies (2nd and 3rd ones, anyway) can backfire, so I am not recommending them, just some options to think about.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the input. I was also wondering, if I send my AROTC application to so that it is reviewed by a later board would this be beneficial or do the number of scholarship offers dimminish with each round of offers. Also, how many times does the board meet to review applications.

This year there are 3 boards, October, January and March.

All other things being equal it is best to apply early. My understanding is that if you are not selected at the first board your application is rolled over to each following one.

However, what's not clear to me is if the bar is set higher for the earliest board or not. Maybe Marist or ClarksonArmy can comment.

The bar comes down a little bit, but the pool gets bigger, and the number of allocations is obviously diminished. Early is usually better.