NROTC 4 year scholarship disqualification

WKach

5-Year Member
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Dec 11, 2012
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I am a senior in high school, and I take a lot of dual credit and college courses...so much so that I will technically have 74 hours of college credit by the time I graduate. I didn't realize until a short while ago that 30+ hours is grounds for disqualification from 4 year ROTC scholarships (my backup plan if I don't go to the USNA). I understand the reason for this, as they don't want to give 4-year scholarships to people who won't attend for 4 years, but I do still intend to obtain a Master's degree, plus not all my credits are necessarily transferable, at least not to the point of all benefiting an Engineering major. Does anybody know if exceptions are ever made for these situations?
 
I am a senior in high school, and I take a lot of dual credit and college courses...so much so that I will technically have 74 hours of college credit by the time I graduate. I didn't realize until a short while ago that 30+ hours is grounds for disqualification from 4 year ROTC scholarships (my backup plan if I don't go to the USNA). I understand the reason for this, as they don't want to give 4-year scholarships to people who won't attend for 4 years, but I do still intend to obtain a Master's degree, plus not all my credits are necessarily transferable, at least not to the point of all benefiting an Engineering major. Does anybody know if exceptions are ever made for these situations?

I suppose it doesn't hurt to ask the cadre at your #1 choice school about it. I could foresee it still taking 4 years to get an engineering degree even with a bunch of credits going in. Many engineering students have to get a waiver to attend a 5th year to complete their degree (on their own dime). I do know they will not allow you to pursue a masters while you're on the 4 year scholarship. This came up on another thread in the past couple months.

PS. You might inquire about applying for a 2 year scholarship when you contact the unit.I can't see you completing an engineering degree in that time but I don't know enough about the course you've already taken to make any real assessment.
 
I totally concur with Kinnem. My daughter was in the same position you're in with credits. When it came time to transfer those credits towards her engineering degree only two or three actually went towards her degree. It has still taken her four full years of taking 18 credits a semester at the University of Virginia to complete her degree in four years.
 
I agree with the other 2 posts. Our DS had @33 credits, and when he went off to college, few were accepted, and most were used for validating freshman classes, but they did not count to his degree. Many of these credits were in his major...govt and poli sci.

I would also talk to your admissions office at the colleges you are applying to for next yr. Most colleges also have a cut off on the number of credits they will allow freshman to enter with, other wise you would be a transfer applicant. The reason is college is a business and they want you to be there for the max. amount of time.

The way they get around this is they will have some courses that must be taken with them and that course is offered only once a yr. So if you don't have the pre-req. and that class is offered only in the fall you are out of luck because from that time on you will still be graduating with everyone that enters with no credits, just maybe with a dual major.
 
Many engineering students have to get a waiver to attend a 5th year to complete their degree (on their own dime).

It is possible to request and get a waiver for an extra semester to complete your degree and still have that covered on scholarship.
Daughter will take an extra semester to finish up despite a 20-21 hour class load for 4 years.
 
My bet is you are on your own dime, unless the unit offers college scholarships. At our DS's AFROTC unit, they awarded scholarships for cadets that were not AFROTCHQ tied.
 
It is possible to request and get a waiver for an extra semester to complete your degree and still have that covered on scholarship.
Daughter will take an extra semester to finish up despite a 20-21 hour class load for 4 years.

Thanks for letting me know GBO. I'll try to remember that in my old and feeble mind so it's at hand when someone asks in the future.
 
Thanks for the information and advice. From previous graduates of my school with similar majors and numbers of hours, schools will accept all of the credits (state schools in particular have to as long as they are Cs or better-I consider Cs disgraceful anyway--and come from an accredited school, which Navarro college is), though only some go toward degrees. Every admissions councilor I have talked to says that I can choose whether to apply as a Freshman or Transfer student and keep all my credits, but suggest Freshman. The effect for some students is being a Freshman for their first semester but a sophomore or junior the next.

I essentially have all the core curriculum covered, plus electives. This leaves only major-specific classes and the math/science classes (most prestigious engineering schools like their students to take things like Calculus with them even if the students already have outside credits earned). I'm not really concerned about managing a Bachelor's or two in 4 years; I could feasibly double major with Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering in 5 semesters plus summer courses if I really wanted to (not that I do want to, it wouldn't be worth the effort and I would hardly be able to keep up with coursework, ROTC, honors classes, and rowing).

My biggest question is about the availability of ROTC scholarships for people like me who plan on going for four years but have too many hours for the basic requirements.
 
Thanks for the information and advice. From previous graduates of my school with similar majors and numbers of hours, schools will accept all of the credits (state schools in particular have to as long as they are Cs or better-I consider Cs disgraceful anyway--and come from an accredited school, which Navarro college is), though only some go toward degrees. Every admissions councilor I have talked to says that I can choose whether to apply as a Freshman or Transfer student and keep all my credits, but suggest Freshman. The effect for some students is being a Freshman for their first semester but a sophomore or junior the next.

I essentially have all the core curriculum covered, plus electives. This leaves only major-specific classes and the math/science classes (most prestigious engineering schools like their students to take things like Calculus with them even if the students already have outside credits earned). I'm not really concerned about managing a Bachelor's or two in 4 years; I could feasibly double major with Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering in 5 semesters plus summer courses if I really wanted to (not that I do want to, it wouldn't be worth the effort and I would hardly be able to keep up with coursework, ROTC, honors classes, and rowing).

My biggest question is about the availability of ROTC scholarships for people like me who plan on going for four years but have too many hours for the basic requirements.

Since you ask the same question I'll try to answer a bit differently in case my earlier answer wasn't clear. According to the info available on the NROTC web site the answer is no. You must have less than 30 hours to apply for the 4 year scholarship. You could possibly apply for a two year scholarship. The only other alternative I see is to enroll in NROTC as a college programmer and see if you can win a side-load scholarship. As I suggested earlier you should contact the NROTC unit at #1 school to see if they have any alternatives. I do not believe you will get an authoritative answer, other than what I have given, on the forums. I'm sure they'll be glad to help if they can.
 
If you want to graduate early have you started to look into going through OCS upon graduation instead of NROTC?
 
Thank you, that's really the answer I was looking for. I have emailed some people at multiple schools and am awaiting replies, I was hoping for somebody here to have suggestions and information in the meantime.

Pima: I hadn't really looked into OCS, partially because I'm not really all that concerned with graduating early. I said it was feasible, not that I want to. That being said, it may simply be convenient to graduate in 3 years rather than 4 (depending on several factors) even with a double major. I took all these college classes early to give myself the opportunity to have a broader and deeper education within a typical time period.
 
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