How Qualified Am I for an NROTC Scholarship?

Littlepenguino

5-Year Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2012
Messages
29
Good morning everyone, I'm trying to get an estimate on how competitive I am for an NROTC Scholarship. I tried to keep all of this as concise as possible, so any possible feedback would be greatly appreciated.


Major: Electrical Engineering
California Resident/Hispanic

Academics:
Cumulative Weighted GPA (9th-12th): 4.58 (I’m still trying to figure out if this is my UC GPA). My school has my 10th-11th GPA listed as 4.8
Cumulative Non-Weighted GPA: 4.0

Classes Taken (I don’t want to take too much space and write my transcripts, so I’ll write the highest class I’ve taken in each academic category)
English: IB English HL 1
Science: Honors Physics
Social Science: AP US History
Math: AP Calculus AB
Foreign Language: Spanish 3
Elective: IB Film SL

AP Exam Scores:
4-AP Human Geography
5-AP European History
(Waiting on other scores)

SAT:
680 Crt Reading/660 Math/640 Writing
Total: 1980
ACT:
27 English/32 Math/29 Reading/28 Science/26 Writing
Composite: 29
(Aiming to retake these ASAP)

Activities:
CSF (9th)
School’s Film Club Secretary (12th)
Junior Statesmen of America Secretary (School Club, aiming for president this year)
AJROTC (Cadet Officer in 10th, Battalion CSM 11th, Battalion Commander 12th)
Student Body Representative (Liaison for PTSA)

Sports:
Cross Country (Projected Varsity, 12th)

Awards:
Student of the Month (10th)
Top JROTC Cadet of Orange County for 2012, SAR Awarded (11th)
Rotary Club Student of the Year for Sonora High (11th)
Principals Honor Roll (every semester, 9th-11th)
[I have medals awarded from JROTC, but I think the only one that would have any weight are the Superior Cadet Decoration (9th-11th) and the SAR Bronze Medal for Citizenship (11th)]
 
Your odds are above average but not strong:

1. Scholar: strong .. congratulations on years of hard work and achievement in this area.
2. Athlete: above average but not strong. Still no Varsity letter
3. Leader: above average, but not strong. "liaison to PTSA" isn't exactly class or school President. I don't know how to comment on your AJROTC leadership qualities.

A lot depends on your ability to flesh out the details and impact of your Leadership experience in your interview and application. Not much you can do about Athlete at this point.

Your intended major could swing you into a scholarship, as it is Type 1. Being hispanic helps a little, but Hispanic isn't as "under-represented" as African American.

Your competition is fierce, so concentrate on highlighting the Leadership component of your achievements in your essay and Interview. I assume you're also applying to the Academies?
 
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I don't have any experience with NROTC but my son applied and received Army and AF ROTC scholarships last year so we investigated those pretty heavily.
Your grades are better than my sons but your test scores are worse than his were. Your leadership looks pretty good to me actually. Making Battalion Comander in AROTC helps you significantly and holding offices in your other clubs shows you are more than just a member.

Your athletics do appear to be your weakest area. Probably the best way to deal with that is do very well on the fitness test (does NROTC require one?).

Interviewing well is important.
 
Your odds are above average but not strong:

1. Scholar: strong .. congratulations on years of hard work and achievement in this area.
2. Athlete: above average but not strong. Still no Varsity letter
3. Leader: above average, but not strong. "liaison to PTSA" isn't exactly class or school President. I don't know how to comment on your AJROTC leadership qualities.

A lot depends on your ability to flesh out the details and impact of your Leadership experience in your interview and application. Not much you can do about Athlete at this point.

Your intended major could swing you into a scholarship, as it is Type 1. Being hispanic helps a little, but Hispanic isn't as "under-represented" as African American.

Your competition is fierce, so concentrate on highlighting the Leadership component of your achievements in your essay and Interview. I assume you're also applying to the Academies?

I agree with you on liaison. I mainly took it because I was disappointed in the lack of communication between the Student Body and PTSA since last year's liaison always skipped out on meetings, but that's a subject for essays and interviews. (I actually got second place in the polls for Class President).

And I intend to focus on leadership experience with JROTC. I've spent a lot of time with the program and would like to say that I've helped it improve, so I'll make sure that stands out on my application.

To answer your question, yes I am applying to the Academies.
 
I don't have any experience with NROTC but my son applied and received Army and AF ROTC scholarships last year so we investigated those pretty heavily.
Your grades are better than my sons but your test scores are worse than his were. Your leadership looks pretty good to me actually. Making Battalion Comander in AROTC helps you significantly and holding offices in your other clubs shows you are more than just a member.

Your athletics do appear to be your weakest area. Probably the best way to deal with that is do very well on the fitness test (does NROTC require one?).

Interviewing well is important.

Only MC Option requires one, according to the website and my recruiter. So I don't need one for Navy Option, unfortunately.
 
Only MC Option requires one, according to the website and my recruiter. So I don't need one for Navy Option, unfortunately.

That is what I thought. Do well on your CFA for the academies. Take some practice tests following the rule to a T before you take the real one.
 
Debbie Downer here.

Your SAT and ACT could be seen as low for an NROTC Tier 1 scholarship. The majority of SA candidates, like you, will apply for ROTC scholarships. ROTC selection is national, SA appointments start off as geo-centric (district/state)

I also see an issue with the uwgpa and the wgpa. I don't know how you can have a 4.0 uw, but a 4.58 wgpa. In NC and VA., an A is an A regardless of weight, in other words you would have a 5.0, not a 4.58. 4.58 tells me 5.0 is the scale that your school uses, thus, you had B's. If you have B's expect your uwgpa to change.

Don't freak over this, just something as an SA candidate you need to be prepared to understand why they would change your GPA on the portal.
 
Debbie Downer here.

Your SAT and ACT could be seen as low for an NROTC Tier 1 scholarship. The majority of SA candidates, like you, will apply for ROTC scholarships. ROTC selection is national, SA appointments start off as geo-centric (district/state)

I also see an issue with the uwgpa and the wgpa. I don't know how you can have a 4.0 uw, but a 4.58 wgpa. In NC and VA., an A is an A regardless of weight, in other words you would have a 5.0, not a 4.58. 4.58 tells me 5.0 is the scale that your school uses, thus, you had B's. If you have B's expect your uwgpa to change.

Don't freak over this, just something as an SA candidate you need to be prepared to understand why they would change your GPA on the portal.

There isn't an inherent issue with the gpa. 5.0 scale is offered for honors or AP classes. Since not all classes are offered as honors or AP a student can have a load of mostly Honors/AP mixed in with P.E. or computer applications etc and end up with a 4.whatever, even with straight A's.

The NROTC Tier 1 scholarship is the easiest to get of the Tiers, not the hardest, so the SAT scores are not too low. 700's are awesome but 650+ is very solid and definitely competitive, even for USNA. However, they may be low for admission into UCB Engineering and definitely worth taking again. NROTC doesn't look to make sure your scores match up for your college of choice. That's a separate process.
 
Basil,

Notice I said UW. UW means that AP or PE all carry the same weight. They don't care what the level of the course is when determining the uwgpa, they go by A.B. C, D, and F. An A in PE and A in APLIT is 4.0, hence the reason why his UW is most likely not a 4.0, because somewhere in the mix he got B's. If he has a 4.58 on a wgpa scale of 5.0,, he has some B's.

Caveat, at least that is how it works in NC and VA, also in NJ.

Secondly, the OP wants engineering, I took that into the equation regarding his SAT/ACT scores.

His gpa is strong, no doubt about it, but the unknown right now is the school rigor. Something that will be looked at by the boards. How many go Ivy, go OOS/IS Public 4 yr, 2 yr, work from that school. What is his rank at the school. Would you say a 4.58 wgpa is strong if he is the top 35% and only 25% go 4 yr Public?

Engineering in college is not for the weak or the meek. ROTC knows this, and they understand that ROTC will take away from academic studies.
 
Basil,

Notice I said UW. UW means that AP or PE all carry the same weight. They don't care what the level of the course is when determining the uwgpa, they go by A.B. C, D, and F. An A in PE and A in APLIT is 4.0, hence the reason why his UW is most likely not a 4.0, because somewhere in the mix he got B's. If he has a 4.58 on a wgpa scale of 5.0,, he has some B's.

Caveat, at least that is how it works in NC and VA, also in NJ.

Secondly, the OP wants engineering, I took that into the equation regarding his SAT/ACT scores.

His gpa is strong, no doubt about it, but the unknown right now is the school rigor. Something that will be looked at by the boards. How many go Ivy, go OOS/IS Public 4 yr, 2 yr, work from that school. What is his rank at the school. Would you say a 4.58 wgpa is strong if he is the top 35% and only 25% go 4 yr Public?

Engineering in college is not for the weak or the meek. ROTC knows this, and they understand that ROTC will take away from academic studies.
In systems I am familiar with that A in AP Lit = 5.0 and that A in PE = 4.0 and when you combine them you get a 4.5 weighted or 4.0 UW.

His scores could use improving but Math seems to be the big one and that ACT 32 in math is around a 720 SAT Math - pretty good.
 
Basil,

Notice I said UW. UW means that AP or PE all carry the same weight. They don't care what the level of the course is when determining the uwgpa, they go by A.B. C, D, and F. An A in PE and A in APLIT is 4.0, hence the reason why his UW is most likely not a 4.0, because somewhere in the mix he got B's. If he has a 4.58 on a wgpa scale of 5.0,, he has some B's.

Well, it's different in Texas. (isn't everything?) At my sons' school, the max a freshman can earn, weighted, is 4.5 with all As. That's taking all the honors classes offered (4). Those 4 count for 5 points each (20 total) and the other 4 count for 4 points each (16). The GPA is (20+16)/8= 4.5. It gets more complicated if the student took any study halls or pass/fail classes. Each year, the max is different since the Honors/AP options may be different. For this year's graduates, the straight A max with all possible 5 point clases was 4.75.
 
Basil,

Notice I said UW. UW means that AP or PE all carry the same weight. They don't care what the level of the course is when determining the uwgpa, they go by A.B. C, D, and F. An A in PE and A in APLIT is 4.0, hence the reason why his UW is most likely not a 4.0, because somewhere in the mix he got B's. If he has a 4.58 on a wgpa scale of 5.0,, he has some B's.

Caveat, at least that is how it works in NC and VA, also in NJ.

Secondly, the OP wants engineering, I took that into the equation regarding his SAT/ACT scores.

His gpa is strong, no doubt about it, but the unknown right now is the school rigor. Something that will be looked at by the boards. How many go Ivy, go OOS/IS Public 4 yr, 2 yr, work from that school. What is his rank at the school. Would you say a 4.58 wgpa is strong if he is the top 35% and only 25% go 4 yr Public?

Engineering in college is not for the weak or the meek. ROTC knows this, and they understand that ROTC will take away from academic studies.

Pima,

As armydaughter said, my school takes classes that are not considered "honors" and only gives them a weight of 4.0, even for weighted. So since I wasn't allowed to take a full honors schedule each year, the non-honors classes brought my weighted GPA down, even though I received A's in them.

It's most likely a west coast thing.
 
One thing to add......my son's high school (highly rated public) used the following scales (we are in North Carolina) for the weighted GPA:

4.0 for regular classes
4.5 for honors classes
5.0 for AP classes

In other words if you had an "A" in the following classes you would have a 4.625 for the grading period.

PE (4.0)
Honors English (4.5)
AP Cal (5.0)
AP World History (5.0)

Given the above you could have less than a 5.0 and still make all "A"s.

I really wish there could be a standard GPA, but with all the differences in school systems, states, and public vs. private it don't think it will ever happen.

Also, NROTC only looks at Math and English on the ACT.
 
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As others stated it varies state by state and that is why not only will SA's and ROTC re-weight, but so do colleges.

In our school, the wgpa is for only weighted classes. Max weight is 4.5, AP are the only weighted courses. In our old school, AP was 5.0, but honors was 4.5. This is even before we discuss grading scale, 7 or 10 points, or if an A, even a 90 = 4.0, or does it =3.6. That is why they will come back in and re-weight your score to their parameters.

As far as the SAT/ACT I am someone who believes you should never aim for the median. I say this because the WCS is more than PAR, it is the WHOLE candidate. A 650 candidate with 4 yrs FB, 2 yrs LAX, NHS, FBLA, and 300 hrs of volunteering will have a different score than a 650 candidate with no leadership, no athletics, and no volunteerism. We should not place a blanket statement that it is a strong score, without placing in the other factors.

IMPO, I felt it was low because the OP is not very competitive in the factors outside of PAR. He has JROTC, but little else, so the academic side IMPO needs to be stronger to be competitive. I am not trying to be harsh, I am trying to place components together and strengthen his weaknesses by increasing possible strengths.
 
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