Futuresoldier: let me try to answer your questions, based on my DD's experience last year (she just finished her freshman year).
1. She took SAT's several times and kept bettering her scores along the away. We kept sending these in. My memory is that her best was M: 640, R: 590. She also took the ACT and was a 29. She had a 3.8 GPA (weighted with several AP courses (Calculus, Chemistry, Lit). To the extent it helped, she was a varsity captain (senior year) in soccer, basketball and track and played in the school orchestra (violin).
2. I am not sure about the different board dates for Nurse majors. With NROTC, you apply under the "Nurse Option", so that could very well be. Under AROTC, you select nursing as a major and I believe you meet the same boards as everyone else. I am sure they have their quotas as far as how many nurse scholarships they give.
3. With both NROTC and ARPTC, she had her apps totally (including interview) complete by late September and received word in January 2011 that she had received the scholarship. With NROTC it was for a local in-state school and she would have been cross-town to the NROTC Battalion. With AROTC she was given the choice of a couple nursing schools and ended up requesting a transfer of the scholarship to a third school (private college) withing the same brigade. She received the transfer and is now attending that school.
4. In talking with her extensively about the decision, I think school choice had a big part in her decision to go Army, however, she also really liked the Army program (great Gold Bar Recruiter at one of the colleges and very friendly ROO's) and felt more connected to it with a couple overnight stays with current cadets at a couple campuses. She was also invited on a field trip to Walter Reed in the spring of her senior year, which greatly impressed her and made her decide Army was the way to go for her. I think Army really did a good job of getting her interested.
5. Most exciting for us as parents is to see that after a year in the program, she is very excited about it, did very well academically and in the ROTC program. She won several awards including superior cadet and was selected to attend Air Assault school. She said she is very excited about serving as an active duty nurse officer down the road.
6. My advice to your DD: Study hard, do well on SAT's (take a review course), take ACT's as well, focus on getting into a good Nursing Program (very competitive!) that has an ROTC program or cross-town affiliation (make sure you look at the practical logistics of this). Get her interviews and PT (only Army) done early and submitted, so her application (if it is ready) can be met by each board. Tell her to saty engaged and to keep updating the ROO's or Gold Bar Recruiters (sometimes these are easier to contact and more willing to talk) at the schools she is interested in.
Best wishes during the process! If you have further questions, I will do my best. As a father, I tries to stay engaged with her and on all of this and helped her with the trips to different campuses, but the motivation and process was all her and showed me her interest and enthusiasm for serving in uniform as a nurse.