How does AROTC 4-yr rate vs Academies?

tjb1975

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My son's high school awards assembly is coming up. We expected that he would be honored during the ceremony regarding his 4-year national scholarship with a visit from the local Battalion during the assembly. Then yesterday he was told by the Administration that they only recognize students going to the Academies and students who have received a Rotary Interact Scholarship. (really??).
Anyway, what are some bullet points I can use to demonstrate that the national 4-year scholarships are equally as admirable as receiving an appointment and acceptance to one of the academies?
Also, has anyone ever been given a press release template from their Battalion re: the 4-year scholarship?
Thanks.
 
My son's high school awards assembly is coming up. We expected that he would be honored during the ceremony regarding his 4-year national scholarship with a visit from the local Battalion during the assembly. Then yesterday he was told by the Administration that they only recognize students going to the Academies and students who have received a Rotary Interact Scholarship. (really??).
Anyway, what are some bullet points I can use to demonstrate that the national 4-year scholarships are equally as admirable as receiving an appointment and acceptance to one of the academies?
Also, has anyone ever been given a press release template from their Battalion re: the 4-year scholarship?
Thanks.
I have contacted the PMS at the battalion I was awarded at and they have said that they will be sending someone to present my scholarship on awards day
 
A local rep came to my son's senior awards night and presented all three, 3 year AROTC winners their scholarships. Maybe explain that approximately 8,000-10,000 apply and around 2,500 actually receive them.
 
tjb1975 --

Army ROTC national scholarships have similar statistics to Service Academy appointments -- clarksonarmy or DJA can double check me on the numbers . . .

Data below is from UNG AROTC FAQs:http://api.viglink.com/api/click?fo...larships-and-grants/army-rotc-scholarship.php
. . . and the West Point Class of 2019 Class Profile brief: http://www.usma.edu/parents/SiteAssets/USMA - 2015 Parent Welcome Brief - 29JUN15 (FINAL).pdf


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Call the local Army ROTC Battalion at your closest University. They will probably send an Officer and bring a "Big Check" to present at awards night that represents the value of the scholarship your DS has won. Sounds like your school's administrator and guidance counselors need some education themselves. I'm sure the Army ROTC Battalion will be happy to help with the education.
 
tjb1975 --

. . . and if they ask, "Well if the 4 yr AROTC requirements are so high, why wasn't your DS selected for USMA (or one of the other SAs)? . . . let them know that the SA selection process is very complicated requiring representation from each state and most congressional districts . . . that each year there are candidates that are offered appointments to an SA but don't qualify for a ROTC scholarship, and that there are candidates each year that receive a national ROTC scholarship but are not offered an SA appointment . . . if anything, the ROTC process is a more "order of merit based" selection based on a "whole person" or "whole candidate" score than the SA process due to ROTC not having to meet the geographic diversity rules the the SAs have to meet . . . 2 different processes with different rules looking for slightly different things.
 
When my son won a 4 yr. AROTC scholarship he asked if he would be getting anything at the awards ceremony. They told him they only recognize students that are enlisting in the military. I think he was relieved though. He did not want a "big check" presentation.
 
That is great they recognized those that were enlisting . . . as long as they are consistent in their rules that is great . . .

. . . however, IMHO, if they are going to recognize SA appointments, they should recognize ROTC national scholarship winners as well . . .
 
My husband has presented Navy awards at high school awards assemblies. It's great for smaller schools who may not be as familiar with officer tracks.

This might be why the OPs school is doing this. My kids went to what I call small HS (250 graduating class) and yet, the scholarship awards program was @2 1/2 hrs. I could not imagine how long it would be if he graduated from a HS like Bullet and I did (850 graduating class).

The only thing I would put in the bullet points is how much this scholarship is worth. We all know that college is not cheap, especially if he is going private or OOS public. In essence, it could be 100K+ and that might make them think twice about their decision.

I hate to say, but sometimes it is also a political game within the school system. They may not want to acknowledge the ROTC scholarship option because they have their own personal feelings about the military, or that they feel like presenting this scholarship is in a way recruiting kids for the military.

Maybe it's just me, but if the school is only acknowledging the SA appointments and Rotary scholarships, I think there is a low chance of swaying them because it opens the floodgates to doing every scholarship. My DS (AFROTC) scholarship was called up to the stage 3 times because they acknowledged all 3 of his scholarships separately. The Valedictorian and Salutatorian must have been each called up 5 times. Than there were the kids that got merit from their colleges too. Like I said, it was a long ceremony because there must have been 100 scholarships acknowledged, and with each one the presenter spoke for 2 minutes or so giving some background on that scholarship.

I understand your pride, and it was one of my proudest moments of his HS career, and the only advice I can give you is something that has happened for other parents. Ask the school if the presenter can come during the day and present at school. What usually occurs here is they will call him out of class to go to the Guidance counselor's office, and than along with the family and administration he is acknowledged. The word will spread very quickly through the school that he got the scholarship because anytime a kid gets pulled out of class to go to the GC's office kids will want to know why. Make a day out of it. After the private acknowledgement take him out of school and go to lunch or early dinner. In the end it will be a memory he will cherish even more, because if your school is like my kids, awards ceremony is at night, and not mandatory. That means if this is the only scholarship/award he is to receive than no need to attend! My DS was like DanGir, we basically had to drag him to it. He would have been more than happy to skip it.

There is an another thread about this, and I recall 1 poster (AROTC) saying they do the presentation when they get to the ROTC detachment in the fall. I also recall that clarkson said a while back that they were doing it for kids privately at the parents home or school, and not necessarily awards night. This might be the new trend for AROTC. So double check with the person that you would be requesting for the night regarding availability. This might all be for naught.
~ In our area we have 16 HSs and not all of them have that specific branch for JROTC or even JROTC. I.E. 1 HS might have AFJROTC, and he got AROTC. That means you would want somebody from AROTC to present, not the AF. Since all of our HS here graduate within a 2 day span, they typically will have awards night around the same time. Hard to be at multiple HSs on the same night as a presenter. That means they have to get people from other areas, such as a local ROTC unit (college) or a recruiter. In turn, these people have even larger areas to cover, not just 1 district, so it brings it back to of coordinating with the presenter. Thus, in the end they may say, we will try, but as of right now for May X date we are already booked up for other schools.
~~ My DS's was not presented by his ALO (aka Army FFR?), because he was presenting at another HS. His presentation was from a PMS out of UNCCH (70 miles away)
 
Pima has a good point on adding the dollar value to show the 4 yr AROTC scholarship is similar in "value" to the "SA scholarship".

At our school, (big school in NoVA with over 2000 kids) at awards night they put the names of all scholarship winners on a scrolling slide with the amounts they each received for each scholarship, that way they each got recognition.

They only called up my son and a few other that had received "full-ride" academic merit scholarships. The AROTC 4-year scholarship amount will easily clear any $ threshold required for special recognition and the "Big Check" they will present will make that clear

Just add up the tuition cost per year at the school your DS is headed to and put it on the chart above. You don't even need to add the annual amount for books + uniforms and the amount for the monthly stipend the AROTC scholarship provides.

Best of luck
 
At our school, (big school in NoVA with over 2000 kids) at awards night they put the names of all scholarship winners on a scrolling slide with the amounts they each received for each scholarship, that way they each got recognition.

At my DS2s HS they did not do that, but instead in the main hallway (administration, guidance and the library) all of the windows had pictures of the kids that received scholarships with a write up about the amounts and where they would be attending in the fall. This allowed the school to show support to the student and their parents while at the time not acknowledging the smaller scholarships.
~ You had to walk through that hallway to get to the auditorium, and of course this day and age with cell phone cameras the hallway was littered with parents lining their child up against their picture on the window either before or after the ceremony. Of course everybody noticed these kids even if they were not recognized during the ceremony because people were waiting to take a pic of their own child next to their pic, thus as you waited you talked.
~~ Additionally, everyday the students pass the pics at school, and it opens their eyes to scholarships they never knew existed, which helps the students/families that will have rising seniors.

As an example, if you live near a military base, the Officer, Civilian Spouse Club offers scholarships, but they top out @500 on avg and was a 1x deal. There are many small scholarships like that (my employer offers up to 1K) that help families out, not only are they unique where not every student can apply, but again for a large HS class it can mean taking up a lot of time to acknowledge them. At DS2s HS that is why they did the photo wall. The line they drew was simple. The scholarship had to be open to everyone (i.e. not an employer) and it had to be recurring.
~ IE: ROTC or merit from the colleges would pass that bar.

Just saying to the OP if you stop and approach it from a different perspective, the school's perspective, you maybe able to be the advocate for every HS parent wanting their child to be recognized while at the same time allowing the school a viable solution that would keep the awards ceremony close to their needs/wants. It might be that they have their own tunnel vision because that is how it is always been done. Yet, here you have been told how other schools handle it in 3 different ways where the kids were recognized.
~ Falcon A and the scrolling slide show
~ My DS2's school where the main hallway is plastered with their senior portraits and a scholarship bio with it (8 x11)
~ Pulling the student out of class and doing a private acknowledgement.

Sometimes it is the approach that can change everything. I don't know if this is your 1st, middle or last child, but here is your chance to be a voice and change the system, so that next year another parent will be able to have that joy you are desiring during their kids senior year. You may not be able to change it, but your child will be proud of you for trying to do something not only for your family and every family at your HS. He will see you as an advocate for all of those families and will be one more reason why he has grown to be this amazing kid wanting to defend/support this country, because that is what he sees with you and your own actions as a parent. Defending and supporting your community.
 
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tjb1975 --

Army ROTC national scholarships have similar statistics to Service Academy appointments -- clarksonarmy or DJA can double check me on the numbers . . .

Data below is from UNG AROTC FAQs:http://api.viglink.com/api/click?fo...larships-and-grants/army-rotc-scholarship.php
. . . and the West Point Class of 2019 Class Profile brief: http://www.usma.edu/parents/SiteAssets/USMA - 2015 Parent Welcome Brief - 29JUN15 (FINAL).pdf


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Call the local Army ROTC Battalion at your closest University. They will probably send an Officer and bring a "Big Check" to present at awards night that represents the value of the scholarship your DS has won. Sounds like your school's administrator and guidance counselors need some education themselves. I'm sure the Army ROTC Battalion will be happy to help with the education.

Falcon A, I agree with everything you referenced. Last year I read somewhere AROTC 4 year winners averaged 29 on the ACT which was actually higher than the WP average. Now if I could only recall where I read that! But, that makes sense since the average AROTC scholarship winner averaged 27 and only 30% of the winners were 4 year scholarships. Hopefully, all this material helps tjb 1975's case because it is extremely hard to get one of these scholarships.
 
Can't really give much advice on how to make the comparison to allow a presentation. Both my sons declined any attempts to be presented a big paper check, neither cared much about it. Wouldn't have worked anyway since their school did not acknowledge scholarships or appointments at any awards night. They had a page in the graduation program that listed scholarships of those that submitted the information to the school, that was about it.
 
Thanks for all the input. I value your time. Sorry I've been AWOL since my original post. I'm 36 weeks pregnant and I've had a rough few days! DS's high school is a laboratory school with about 140 in each class. Last year's graduating class had over 10 million in scholarship offers made to them. It's a pretty robust crew. The awards assembly is mandatory for the entire student body and takes place during the school day. Of all the awards mentioned, the only outside scholarships are the Rotary Interact and SA's. DS is very proud, of course, and more than being recognized for himself, wants the school to recognize the military options as good, viable, honorable choices for the students. As are many academic venues, this particular high school, technically a division of the Illinois State University College of Education, is very liberal. The administrator making the decisions is, as well. The point about recognizing all scholarships is valid. I just don't understand the parameters of how Rotary and SA's were the ONLY ones chosen to be recognized. My son, when the local ISU Battalion first made his award, was recognized on the school facebook page for having received the scholarship. I think his real interest in wanting the presentation in front of the entire school is in encouraging other students to have the same patriotic feelings, or at least to honor those who have chosen the service. Maybe I'll just take the press release route and get something in the paper!
 
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