Good Luck to everyone else. It's obviously VERY tough this year. My son is in a Governor's School, which is a very selective school with extremely high academic standards. He maintains a 3.9 GPA. He scored a 1360 on the SAT and a 30 on the ACT. He a competitive cyclist and competes on the academic bowl team. His grandfather was a Navy pilot, retired after 28 years. His father was a Navy nuke, who spent 10 years in the Navy. I don't know what they were looking for this year, but he wasn't it.
Your son has sterling credentials! I'm sure this is discouraging for 98% of the applicants this year. But why not just simply continue to charge ahead as planned and matriculate and compete for other scholarship opportunities/financial aid (i.e., loans)?
Despite what the various threads on SAF might suggest, the real prize is NOT about winning an ROTC scholarship or gaining admission to a military academy. It is about earning a commission from the President of the United States, not simply because it is a noble profession, but rather because of all the management experience that comes along with it and the doors that will open for the ex-officer for no other reason than because of his or her experience. The "numbers" totally bear this out.
If you look at future job prospects alone (setting aside the issue of how well one is prepared to perform that job), the distinction between officers and enlisted works the same way that education does. Those with simply a high-school diploma typically have a harder time, statistically, of landing a good-paying job than those who have a college degree. Similarly, officers enjoy a substantial edge (because of prior leadership/management experience) over enlisted in the same age-bracket (i.e., not NCOs, but junior enlisted) in terms of hiring upon separation from service. If you compare the earning power of a junior enlisted service member (say, $50,000) to that of a junior officer (say, $100,000) and span that difference over 10 years or so (giving the bright enlisted member sufficient time to catch up to the officer in terms management experience), that is a difference of at least $500,000 -- far more than any scholarship award.
In fact, one could go non-scholarship ROTC and use the additional income to service student-loan debt and STILL come out ahead financially than someone who gives up on this path. And these numbers do not factor in bonuses, raises or cost-of-living increases!
If you take your average enlisted and average officer who separated at the same time (and one is NOT better than the other), a $50,000 difference in salary spread out over 30 years comes to a whopping $1,500,000 (plus interest!). Compare that to your average college graduate with NO military experience.
Currently, about 85% of new college graduates are living at home with their parents without a job. A 2LT in the Army is making $33,408, plus bonuses and allowances; your DS will make half that amount as an E-1.
And even if you do decide that a career as an officer in the military is your "thing" (and thus don't care about the "numbers" discussed above), the ONLY way you're going to get there is through one of the commissioning sources discussed on SAF.
I do not have any skin in this game (I'm just a normal parent), but I urge everyone to think about this as scholarship decisions are announced. The "grand prize" is the commission, not the scholarship.