A few more scholarship questions

armydaughter

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Apr 18, 2012
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Ok, so DS got his letter regarding the scholarship process. He has a few questions.

1) PFT - what are the standards, max, over max times/reps. Are they published? I could only find the directs on the correct form and the score card. He will be training for the CFA at the same time and wants to maximize his prep.

2) The letter says that, if offered a scholarship, you have to reply to accept and choose which school (of the ones offered, if more than one) within 30 days. Since the first boards are long before college acceptances come out, how does that work?

Thanks.
 
1) APFT standards are published, but they are for 2 minutes, and 2 miles, not 1 minute and 1 mile. I suppose you could just multiply the 2 minute and 2 miles by about 60% to convert.

2) First, you can early apply to a lot of schools. Still, it will be until mid-Feb through late March that you will hear from some schools.

To make a complicated, long answer short, if your son diesn't get into the school that he accepted the scholarship for, he can petition Cadet Command to transfer his scholarship award to another school. If the other school is within the same Brigade (the US is divided into 7 regions + Senior Military Colleges, each called a Brigade) and is not more expensive, the chances are good ... let's say 50/50.

If he is unable to transfer the scholarship, he can participate in ROTC, if it is offered at his preferred school, without a scholarship. Then, perform well, and maybe get an in-school ROTC scholarship, or simply participate without a scholarship and contract at the beginning of his Junior year, then commission 21 months later. Most ROTC cadets, including those that commission, are not on scholarship.

There are a number of threads, perhaps starting at page 2 or 3 on this Board, that talk about people's experiences trying to transfer the Scholarship Award by petitioning Cadet Command.
 
Ok, so DS got his letter regarding the scholarship process. He has a few questions.

1) PFT - what are the standards, max, over max times/reps. Are they published? I could only find the directs on the correct form and the score card. He will be training for the CFA at the same time and wants to maximize his prep.

2) The letter says that, if offered a scholarship, you have to reply to accept and choose which school (of the ones offered, if more than one) within 30 days. Since the first boards are long before college acceptances come out, how does that work?

Thanks.

1) For Army ROTC scholarship you take a PFA which differs from the actual APFT. I have never seen any max scores listed. You are intended to do your best in all events. This is my recollection from my son doing this last year.

2) This does create a problem. You have to select a school that you may have not been accepted too yet and hope you get in. If you don't get into the school you selected on the scholarship you can request a transfer but getting a transfer is not a sure thing.
 
If you have a high level of confidence, your son might consider applying Early Decision/Early Action to his top choice school. While ED is binding, EA is not. Also, that it may be possible to apply to multiple schools for EA.

A talent for juggling can be quite helpful.
 
If you have a high level of confidence, your son might consider applying Early Decision/Early Action to his top choice school. While ED is binding, EA is not. Also, that it may be possible to apply to multiple schools for EA.

A talent for juggling can be quite helpful.

We just finished a whirlwind tour of colleges, including several on his ROTC list. ED requires either that you only apply to one school or that you withdraw all your other aps if accepted. We just are not in the position to make that committment without knowing how the finances will shake out. This is going to eliminate the option of joining ROTC without a scholarship of some sort at most of the schools too.

He will be applying EA for most of the schools but even EA notification dates are in Nov., except for TAMU where he is automatic admit. How soon after the boards meet will they send these 30 day letters?

PS I will suggest DS take up juggling and maybe even inaugurate a school team - extra EC points, right? :biggrin:
 
We just finished a whirlwind tour of colleges, including several on his ROTC list. ED requires either that you only apply to one school or that you withdraw all your other aps if accepted. We just are not in the position to make that committment without knowing how the finances will shake out. This is going to eliminate the option of joining ROTC without a scholarship of some sort at most of the schools too.

He will be applying EA for most of the schools but even EA notification dates are in Nov., except for TAMU where he is automatic admit. How soon after the boards meet will they send these 30 day letters?

PS I will suggest DS take up juggling and maybe even inaugurate a school team - extra EC points, right? :biggrin:

Your smart in avoiding the ED, there were applicants here this year and last that did ED and then received a scholarship to a different school, caused some issues.

The best thing you can do is make sure your son applies to schools he has a better then average chance of admission. If this year is like the past two he will be lucky if he awarded a scholarship to more then one school, for several applicants last year it was the school they didn't get admitted.

My son applied in the Fall of 2010, he was lucky and was awarded his scholarship by the first board, it was for 5 schools. The boards following awarded scholarships to much fewer schools. My son had applied to schools that were well within his acceptence range so it was not an issue for him.

Getting selected by the first board does have it's issues when it comes to college selection, if your son is on the bubble for admission it can be a stressful wait.

As far as the PFT, as others have said there is not a published standard, just make sure he works out and prepares. My older son's PMS was on one of the boards a couple years ago, he said they really don't look too hard at the PU's and SU's since most of the applicants do them with a PE teacher or coach and probably are not doing them in the proper form anyway, just have your son do as many as he can, they are just looking to see if they are fit. The run is where form does not matter, this is where the applicant can shine a bit. Have your son run...a lot..and get his mile time down as low as he can, this is the one area they take more notice.

The letters giving the awardee the 30 day notice is usually sent out within a week to a week and a half after they get notification of the scholarship.
 
There is one working strategy for making ED work with the ROTC process. Here it is:

Apply ED to his favorite school.

The first boards have been meeting around the end of October, but of course that could happen any time after that. However, as long as you know the results of the first board (i.e. either you got a scholarship to THAT school, you got a scholarship to ANOTHER school, or you didn't get selected at all) you can adjust your ED application as follows:

If you got the scholarship to THAT school, you have 30 days to accept which should put you right at the ED notification for THAT school. You should know whether THAT school accepted you in time to accept both the school and scholarship together.

If you got the scholarship to ANOTHER school (and not THAT school), you simply call (or preferably write if there is enough time) the school and change your application to a RD application (schools allow that). Yes, it theoretically decreases chances of acceptance, but it would be an acceptance that you could take if for some reason the scholarship never comes through or he doesn't pass DoDMERB and is just choosing a school on other non-ROTC factors. At that point he can accept the scholarship to ANOTHER school and try to transfer it later before the May 1 acceptance date to THAT school.

If he doesn't get selected in the first board, pursue a strategy similar to ANOTHER school and change the school application to RD and make your decision on school and scholarship later.

Bottom line, ED can work ONLY if his application gets selected in the first board, but there is no real cost to try as long as you can change the college application before the cutoff date (usually about a week before ED decisions are mailed out).

Best of luck.
 
Goaliedad,

Thank goodness your here to straighten out these issues, it sure clears up what we all try to muddle through.

Great advice.
 
We just finished a whirlwind tour of colleges, including several on his ROTC list. ED requires either that you only apply to one school or that you withdraw all your other aps if accepted. We just are not in the position to make that committment without knowing how the finances will shake out. This is going to eliminate the option of joining ROTC without a scholarship of some sort at most of the schools too.

He will be applying EA for most of the schools but even EA notification dates are in Nov., except for TAMU where he is automatic admit. How soon after the boards meet will they send these 30 day letters?

PS I will suggest DS take up juggling and maybe even inaugurate a school team - extra EC points, right? :biggrin:
Last year on the first board it was about 1-1/2 weeks before the letter was mailed. The 30 days started when they printed the letter so we had 3-1/2 weeks to decide. My son was offered at two schools, one being TAMU which he was an automatic admit at and was his first choice. There seemed to be more multiple school offers on the first board than the later boards.
 
There is one working strategy for making ED work with the ROTC process. Here it is:

Apply ED to his favorite school.

The first boards have been meeting around the end of October, but of course that could happen any time after that. However, as long as you know the results of the first board (i.e. either you got a scholarship to THAT school, you got a scholarship to ANOTHER school, or you didn't get selected at all) you can adjust your ED application as follows:

If you got the scholarship to THAT school, you have 30 days to accept which should put you right at the ED notification for THAT school. You should know whether THAT school accepted you in time to accept both the school and scholarship together.

If you got the scholarship to ANOTHER school (and not THAT school), you simply call (or preferably write if there is enough time) the school and change your application to a RD application (schools allow that). Yes, it theoretically decreases chances of acceptance, but it would be an acceptance that you could take if for some reason the scholarship never comes through or he doesn't pass DoDMERB and is just choosing a school on other non-ROTC factors. At that point he can accept the scholarship to ANOTHER school and try to transfer it later before the May 1 acceptance date to THAT school.

If he doesn't get selected in the first board, pursue a strategy similar to ANOTHER school and change the school application to RD and make your decision on school and scholarship later.

Bottom line, ED can work ONLY if his application gets selected in the first board, but there is no real cost to try as long as you can change the college application before the cutoff date (usually about a week before ED decisions are mailed out).

Best of luck.

That's an interesting (if head spinning) strategy. But here's the extra wrinkle. He is applying to USMA as his primary goal and ROTC as his "Plan B". How does ED work with a pending USMA application? Does the requirement to withdraw all other applications apply to the academies?
 
the bottom line with ED is that the risk to the student is that the College to which the student EDed and then declines will inform other colleges of this. There is a gentleman's agreement between the top ED schools wherein a defector from the program will not be allowed to matriculate at other ED schools unless there was a sudden, unforeseen economic shock that doesn't allow the admitted student to matriculate.

Since West Point doesn't participate in the little ED club, there is no legal, financial or admissions repurcussion or risk in applying ED and also applying to West Point. The only issue is moral/ethical.
 
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