NROTC Scholarship to Coast Guard Commission

laker7745

5-Year Member
Joined
Mar 30, 2014
Messages
36
Hi there,

Just curious if anyone can provide an answer... If I am granted an NROTC scholarship to The Citadel, can I commission into the Coast Guard via DCSS or OCS later on down the road?

Thanks
 
If you're on a NROTC scholarship you'd commission into the Navy. There is some opportunity (pretty rare) to cross-commission. Remember the Navy paid to train you, so it isn't an easy argument to switch to a service that didn't pay for that training.

Can you go straight from NROTC to CG? I don't think so, but I'm not current in the info dept.
 
I'm just not sure because I know the Coast Guard has DCSS from The Citadel so I wonder if the service commitment would be absorbed.
 
I'm sure there are others more familiar with DCSS program, but, from the research I have done, the key part of the program is the two year ROTC participation requirement. Once you contract with the Navy (first day Sophomore year for 4 year and 3 year scholarship winners and first day Junior year for 2 year scholarship and advanced standing winners) you are owned by the Navy and will be unable to participate in the DCSS program. The only way to take part in the DCSS program is to join NROTC as a college programmer and participate for the maximum two years without contracting. Then you disenroll from ROTC and finish the remainder of your time in school, applying for DCSS your senior year. The O-JAK (or Officer Job Application Kit) has great information on all Coast Guard direct commission programs and useful statistics of successful applicants.
 
Good effort but still not what I am looking for as ROTC is an academic requirement as SMC's..
 
You might want to ask the mods to move this to the Publicly and Privately funded Military College forums because those posters typically will have more insight into how the SMCs work.

Otherwise, I think everybody here will glom onto 2 key words in your OP...NROTC scholarship.

As stated as a contracted mid(scholarship) you will sign commitment paperwork the beginning of your fall semester junior year stating you will serve out your commitment in the Navy. Thus, that means you would have to ask to be x-commissioned into the CG, and if it is like x-commissioning within the DoD world, the CG would also have to agree to accept you too.
~ CG is part of Homeland Security, not the DoD, so now, unlike trying to xcommissioning between DoD branches (Army, Navy or AF) you are also asking the DoD to completely release you to serve in Homeland.
 
Out of curiosity, if you want the Coast Guard, did you consider applying to the Coast Guard Academy?
 
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