TacKLed,
ROTC scholarship is merit based. That means they will not place your financial ability to pay into the process. Your folks could make 10K or 10 million a yr., it has no impact on their decision. Your PAR, PFA, EC and recs will matter.
Regarding the school and how many apply, how many enlist, etc., etc. etc, again, absolutely no impact. You are as an A/NROTC candidate competing against every candidate that has a match to your 5 schools on your list that you submitted to them.
The impact of your selection, is your school profile:
Attend a magnet school, best of the best, 1 teacher to 10 kids, every AP, every sport and club you can imagine.
It can hurt you against the kid from the wrong side of the tracks.
The student who attends a school where 50% do not graduate, they have 5 sports, 8 clubs, and only offer 5 APs.
They look at the profile of the school.
The magnet candidate has a 3.2, ranked in the bottom 85%, took 2 APs out of 16, played 1 sport, no clubs, and no ECS. 25% go Ivy, 50% Private, 25% ISS Public
The wrong side candidate has a 3.5, valedictorian, 2% go Ivy. took every AP offered, played spring and fall sports, Class President, NMSF candidate, works at Target 20 hrs a week for the last 2 yrs.
The board will see that the magnet candidate was skirting by and not pushing himself. The wrong side candidate took advantage of every opportunity.
The wrong side would get the scholarship, not based on financial need, based on also looking at their school profile.
They will not ding a candidate because they had less academic opportunities, they ding them for not taking the opportunities when offered.
The essay will matter, but in the end it will be minimal points and like the PFA something that can make or break you. It is awarded a percentage of the entire WCS. PAR is 60% for WCS, essay if I recall correctly is a % of the 20% of the the WCS. Even if it 50% of the 20%, it is still only 5%.
I believe you are looking at A/NROTC. In both cases you will also have a liaison that will have an impact with the board. The members that interviewed you will submit a rec. That too will be scored points.
I think that is where you are having confusion. The majority here are not fretting over an essay they wrote. They are fretting over the interview because they know that matters for their WCS.
Race will always play into the equation, but I doubt anyone here, even the posters that are BGO's can tell you or would tell you how big of a game changer it is when it comes to the WCS. I would never say because someone is a minority they have a better shot of getting anything. Right now some colleges have URMs and will give an edge, but another school may decide for them that URM is an ORM, and it can hurt.