Application questions

Couple questions, please.

DS is going to make the requests for his AFROTC and NROTC recommendations this week.

1) NROTC is clear that he provides the addresses, etc. of his "people," does AFROTC have the same procedure (vs. written recommendations)?

2) NROTC states "written essays," but doesn't give a prompt, are these essays topics of his choice?

I know these applications don't open until 1 June, but we must get to the teachers before they "check out."

Thank you!

I can help a bit with the NROTC question.

Last year when my daughter applied, the essay prompts are revealed in the online application, and the applicant answers them online. Because you can save your application and come back to it, you can work on the essays and then copy/paste them into the online application.

For teacher recommendations, the online application requests (I think) recommendations from specifically a math teacher, and then another person - teacher/coach,etc. The applicant provides the teacher e-mail address and the teacher is sent a request or prompt to respond to about the applicant. I am not sure if you can "work ahead" on this part of the process without the application being open.

All other posters will tell you to get your application in as early as possible. That is a good thing, but it may not be possible because of these factors. My daughter submitted her application in early January ( I hadn't discovered this forum yet) and still received a scholarship. Her friend who applied on the last day also received a scholarship offer, but accepted AFROTC instead.

Perhaps your son/daughter can alert some teachers to the possibility of them getting an e-mail request during the summer months? Also he can request that his ACT scores be sent to the NROTC as pat of his test taking. They have a code just like you would send scores to a university.

Good Luck!

I think the teacher recommendations are math teacher, english teacher, and then a coach or another teacher of your choice, as I recall from two years ago. Because of these restrictions, DS was unable to use his most favorable recommendation from another teacher who was also a former Marine aviator.

The reason you want to get the application in early is not so much to get a better chance at a scholarship, although that's part of it, but to get a much better chance of getting your desired schools before their slots fill up.

As previous poster pointed out the essay prompts are found in the online application.

I may be confusing my memory with AFA, but for AFROTC.

They do ask for personal recs.

I don't remember if they had a prompt for the essays, because to be honest between AFA, MOC, and college applications, it is too hard to recall who gave prompts.

kinnem said:

I think the teacher recommendations are math teacher, english teacher, and then a coach or another teacher of your choice,

Click to expand...

If you go to the link I have pasted below, it will have all the guidance and instructions for NROTC. Regarding References it states:

"Provide the names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for three required references: 1) a guidance counselor/school administrator; 2) a math, science, or English teacher (depending on program option), and 3) another teacher, counselor, coach, or employer. For teachers, please provide the mailing address for the school instead of a home address. These individuals will be provided instructions on how to complete the necessary forms. We will ask these individuals to evaluate you in several areas and to compare you to your peers; they will also have space to provide written remarks. You should select these individuals carefully as weight will be given to their comments."

http://www.nrotc.navy.mil/pdfs/Application_Instructions_and_Information_Checklist.pdf

Good luck!

Thank you all!

Pima, totally agree about all the different applications, we have a big schematic with the requirements for each academy and ROTC and MOC'S and schools, like planning a little war.

The essays don't have prompts yet, perhaps these will appear when the applications open.

The NROTC site is clear that the recommendations will be emailed to the teachers/coach/counselor, the AFROTC site is not clear, again, perhaps when the application opens, but we wanted to make these requests and get the email addresses before school gets out.

Pima said:

I may be confusing my memory with AFA, but for AFROTC.

They do ask for personal recs.

I don't remember if they had a prompt for the essays, because to be honest between AFA, MOC, and college applications, it is too hard to recall who gave prompts.

Click to expand...

I don't think you need rec letters for AFROTC. When I went through the process I did not need to have any.

I don't remember writing any sort of essay/prompt either.

NROTC App Gouge

The essay prompts haven't changed in years. Here is what they should be:

Discuss your reasons for wanting to become a Naval Officer. (Limited to 2500 characters)
How might your background and experiences enhance the U.S. Naval Service?

For the Officer Interview, if you already know a Naval Officer, you can request that person conduct the Interview. If not, they'll assign a recruiter to do it.

The item that took us the longest to complete was the Guidance Counselor's recommendation. So you are right to try to get them completed before school breaks for summer. We were given paper teacher recommendation forms to complete this past summer.

AFROTC

The AFROTC stuff is pretty simple and on-line. You fill out the on-line application, have your school transcripts sent by your guidance counselor along with a certification by the counselor. You take the physical fitness test with a coach or gym teacher and upload the form to the AFROTC website. SAT anc ACT scores will also need to be sent. Once those things are done, if it is decided your scores are valid, they will contact you to do an in-person interview. We had indicated VMI was our school of choice and since we were "only" 4 hours away, that is who our interview was with. DS took various written recomendations from teachers, coaches, VMI alum, etc. with him in a binder to present during the interview. Good luck!

Thank you very much!

AFROTC seems deceptively simple compared to the others, I wanted to make sure we weren't missing a page or three!

Good luck to everyone!