kinnem, if I recall correctly, AROTC and AFROTC both had a deadline for the "second confirmation letter" of May 30 or mid June. I think the reason this comes up in the context of where the ROTC scholarship is accepted first is because of several reasons:
1. It is perfectly okay for an ROTC candidate to accept an ROTC scholarship and still pursue other options that the candidate might prefer over the ROTC scholarship offer. For each of the services, ROTC actually URGES folks when offered an ROTC scholarship to accept the scholarship without much further thought and then instructs the candidate (paraphrasing), "Don't worry, there is no moral obligation to follow through on this scholarship acceptance until we ask you to confirm your intentions". In this sense, a "moral" obligation does not arise until that second letter comes and specifically asks the candidate to state his or her intention, whereby it would be wrong to affirmatively state an intention when, in fact, he or she harbors no intention or an entirely different intention (note: a moral obligation is quite different than a legal obligation -- the legal obligation does not arise until after the ROTC cadet matriculates and becomes a "contract" cadet after the "evaluation" period has elapsed, which is typically after the first year for a 4-year scholarship -- all candidates need to read these agreements very carefully). The lawyers here on SAF know well that the ROTC "offer" will not give rise to a contract at all, because it is what is known in the trade as an "illusory contract" offer and thus would fail in any court of law if ROTC ever sought to enforce it, even if accepted. The SA Appointment offer, however, contains no such illusory language and, I think, thus gives rise to a "moral" obligation to follow through on the appointment once accepted.
2. ROTC also knows that many of their awardees have co-pending SA applications. In that sense, the ROTC folks know that they are "competing" among themselves for officer candidates and accept this under the notion that the military will get a fine officer at the end of the day regardless. But I am certain that the SAs would object very loudly if ROTC were to try to gain the upper hand on viable SA applicants by forcing the ROTC awardees to accept/reject the scholarship within the very tight deadline that ROTC imposes, usually long before the SA admissions decisions have been announced. Placing candidates under that dilemma is unfair in my opinion.
3. ROTC further knows that candidates have co-pending applications to their School Number 1, which is likely not required to issue an admissions decision until after April 1 for regular decision students. The offer from ROTC, however, can frequently be to a lower-priced School Number 2. Again, it is only fair to permit the ROTC candidate reserve judgment about which school to attend until all offers are on the table.
4. There is also a difference in the way ROTC money and SA appointments are accounted. The scholarship money awarded in ROTC, as I understand it, is recycled -- but NOT for current applicants. Instead, it is my understanding that any declined ROTC scholarship money is used later in the year for on-campus scholarships from an accounting point of view (I suppose that there is enough time between the October board and the March board for AROTC to use unclaimed October money to increase the number of March offers, but most of the other offers in NROTC and AFROTC and Jan/Mar AROTC are too close in time for the accountants to re-work things in sufficient time). In this respect, an "accepted" scholarship offer does not deny another applicant of an ROTC scholarship. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's what I understand how it works.
Accepting an SA appointment works differently. If a candidate accepts an appointment, that means one slot cannot go to another current applicant before the deadline passes for that current applicant to accept or decline his or her other options. In that sense, the candidate is actually hurting his fellow Class of 2016 comrades in arms by accepting an appointment and later deciding not to attend the SA. Of course, there are no legal ramifications for the candidate who does this, though. It's more of a "right and wrong" issue, although there are SA appointees who do not receive their appointments until the summer (presumably made possible an appointment declined by another candidate). Certainly, I don't recall seeing any "loosey-goosey" language in the USMA appointment offer that said anything like what was in the ROTC offer ("Don't worry about an obligation here, we'll confirm your decision at a later date.").
Last year, my DS did not make his decision until all of his options were on the table. This meant delaying his decision until the common May 1 deadline for all civilian schools and USMA. As I recall, admissions decisions from all the civilian schools came in around April 1 (USMA came in around the middle of January). This gave him about three weeks to evaluate each option and pick the best one (and also allow one week within which to communicate the decision). Admittedly, I influenced his decision to delay acceptance of the SA appointment, because I wanted to teach him the proper way to make decisions instead of acting on impulse (and a thing or two about contract law!). Once DS had made the decision to attend USMA, however, he then immediately contacted his Regional Commander at USMA and asked what was the best way to go about turning down his ROTC options. USMA said that the right thing to do is to inform Cadet Command and to speak with each ROTC unit he had been speaking to as soon as possible, and this is what he did.
I suspect that the SA would MUCH rather have appointment offers accepted immediately, as any college admissions office would, but there is the May 1 deadline that is common to all, and it is there for a reason. I don't know the history of that common May 1 deadline, but I suspect it came about to minimize the recruiting games that some all-too-eager admissions offices may have employed prior to its inception.
Of course, if a candidate hasn't pursued any other options other than the SA (not advisable), then there is no reason not to accept the appointment immediately.
I suppose one can say that paying the deposit to a local state school (no scholarship) as a "Plan B" to any SA is unfair to others who applied to that local state school. But as I recall, the local state school never asked my DS to formally "confirm" his intention. Also, it is built into the local state school's model that THOUSANDS of those paying the deposit will attend another school if picked up on the "wait list" at another school. In that respect, the fact that a candidate survives summer training at an SA and then informs the local school shortly thereafter that he or she is going to stick it out at the SA isn't a big deal. Last year, I recall contacting the local state school for which we paid the deposit and informed them that DS was attending USMA over the summer and would know for sure whether he was injured or not by August. The response that I received was basically, "No problem. Please keep us informed." What else could they say? They certainly couldn't complain that they were not aware of the situation.
BOTTOM LINE: I share the view that all candidates should cast their net broadly. Come April, however, it's decision time. Make one decision and stick with it, unless something unforeseen happens.
Well, at least this is all just one parent's view.
