I had a lengthy conversation with a PMS of a school my son listed as one of the top 3 in his on line scholarship application.
She said something that perked my ears.
Cadet Command is trying to provide some incentive structure for the local battalion to attract the best on campus. As such, out of each school's ROTC scholarship "quota", they are allocating ~20% of their scholarship money for campus scholarship at each battalion. This particular PMS is planning to make her selection in Nov or Jan, rather than at the beginning of the candidates' freshman year so that she will have the time to evaluate them (which means, candidates have to show their commitment by joining ROTC without scholarship and do everything s/he can to impress the PMS).
This is a great news for kids coming from families where there is a bit of financial flexibility - meaning, sending the kid to potentially expensive school without a guarantee of scholarship YET.
Another interesting thing I heard from her is ROTC scholarship for private school candidates vs. public school candidates. All of her schools (host school and cross town affiliate schools) currently are private schools. As such, there is NO issue of private school tuition vs. public school tuition. Furthermore, even when they did have public schools (last year), most of the scholarship cadets were private school cadets. Furthermore, 80-90% of the cadets are students at the battalion's host school: she indicated something to the effect that host school cadets are given some consideration, considering the resources the school provided to host the battalion. They are likely NOT discriminated against vis a vis candidates aiming for cheaper public, cross town affiliate schools.
There were some threads earlier where some folks were assuming that putting too many private schools down will disadvantage the candidates because of the high high tuition issue. In general, that would be the case, however, you are relatively "safe" if:
(1) the battalion's host school and most of the cross town affiliate schools are private
(2) the battalion's host school is a private school even if cross town affiliate schools are public
She said something that perked my ears.
Cadet Command is trying to provide some incentive structure for the local battalion to attract the best on campus. As such, out of each school's ROTC scholarship "quota", they are allocating ~20% of their scholarship money for campus scholarship at each battalion. This particular PMS is planning to make her selection in Nov or Jan, rather than at the beginning of the candidates' freshman year so that she will have the time to evaluate them (which means, candidates have to show their commitment by joining ROTC without scholarship and do everything s/he can to impress the PMS).
This is a great news for kids coming from families where there is a bit of financial flexibility - meaning, sending the kid to potentially expensive school without a guarantee of scholarship YET.
Another interesting thing I heard from her is ROTC scholarship for private school candidates vs. public school candidates. All of her schools (host school and cross town affiliate schools) currently are private schools. As such, there is NO issue of private school tuition vs. public school tuition. Furthermore, even when they did have public schools (last year), most of the scholarship cadets were private school cadets. Furthermore, 80-90% of the cadets are students at the battalion's host school: she indicated something to the effect that host school cadets are given some consideration, considering the resources the school provided to host the battalion. They are likely NOT discriminated against vis a vis candidates aiming for cheaper public, cross town affiliate schools.
There were some threads earlier where some folks were assuming that putting too many private schools down will disadvantage the candidates because of the high high tuition issue. In general, that would be the case, however, you are relatively "safe" if:
(1) the battalion's host school and most of the cross town affiliate schools are private
(2) the battalion's host school is a private school even if cross town affiliate schools are public
Last edited: