NROTC Scholarship with awful driving record?

Notmyname...

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How much will the NROTC scholarship board weigh a bad driving record? I have had two amended speeding tickets, had an accident cause I ran a stop sign, and exhibition of speed. Also, I have been convicted of reckless driving but the charge was dropped.
Here is how the exhibition of speed and reckless driving happened: At the end of January I was spinning donuts with my friends in a vacant parking lot. In the parking lot the wheel broke off of my very old lifted Ford Explorer. When I called my mom, she suggested that we walk across the street to a restaurant for us to stay warm while she picked us up. As we were walking across the street the police showed up and we ran. I was charged with reckless driving and exhibition of speed. I plead guilty of exhibition of speed in order to have reckless driving dropped. I learned a lot from this experience. There was no drugs or alcohol. Fortunately, there were no injuries involved.

Other than this I have done all the right things. Varsity wrestler, NJROTC BCO, Eagle Scout, hundreds of hours of community service, extremely good PT scores, a job where I lead and teach adults, I will have many outstanding letters of recommendations from military officers, 27 on the ACT, in the 17% class rank, participated in the Summer STEM camp at USNA, will be participating in Boys State this summer, youth group leader, Military Officers Association of America leadership and academic award.

I am very concerned about how this will impact my ability to get a scholarship. Please share your thoughts on how this information will be interpreted.

Thank you!
 
I counted 5 moving traffic violations, all which could have ended in fatalities, including running from the police. Are you worth NROTC giving you a $180,000 gift for such a miserable continued display of rotten judgement? The military is big on patterns of behavior. I think you better prepare to write a heck of an essay. You are in competition with people who have the same or better qualifications without poor judgement baggage, so what do you think? All I can say is : Good luck.
 
I agree, the essay may be your best hope. "How I overcame...."
You will be asked if you have ever been arrested but you will not be asked for an explanation.
 
Gosh, while I'm sympathetic to your predicament, as a taxpayer I would be pretty concerned that someone with your background history would be placed in charge of leading Sailors or Marines in combat and responsible for millions of dollars in military hardware.

I agree with Spud and AJC regarding the essay:

you got some 'splainin to do!
 
I agree with all above. It comes down to judgement--which is a leadership trait.

In the short time you've had a driver's license (2 ish years) you've had these offenses. A pattern of reckless behavior -- and not a long time to show you've really overcome it -- is hard to reconcile with the common question / statement of "I've always wanted to serve as an officer." Immature actions can be excused to a point, but...

Nobody is going to say you have zero chance, but the selection process is very competitive. By all means, put forth your best essay and work with what you have, but work on that plan B--and stay out of trouble.
 
Apply. You have nothing to lose but the time you spent on the application. If you explain it as you did here, I expect you'll be fine. Although there were multiple violations it was all essentially one incident. Running from the cops was the most stupid thing. Bet if you had stayed nothing would have happened.
 
How much will the NROTC scholarship board weigh a bad driving record? I have had two amended speeding tickets, had an accident cause I ran a stop sign, and exhibition of speed. Also, I have been convicted of reckless driving but the charge was dropped.
Here is how the exhibition of speed and reckless driving happened: At the end of January I was spinning donuts with my friends in a vacant parking lot. In the parking lot the wheel broke off of my very old lifted Ford Explorer. When I called my mom, she suggested that we walk across the street to a restaurant for us to stay warm while she picked us up. As we were walking across the street the police showed up and we ran. I was charged with reckless driving and exhibition of speed. I plead guilty of exhibition of speed in order to have reckless driving dropped. I learned a lot from this experience. There was no drugs or alcohol. Fortunately, there were no injuries involved.

Other than this I have done all the right things. Varsity wrestler, NJROTC BCO, Eagle Scout, hundreds of hours of community service, extremely good PT scores, a job where I lead and teach adults, I will have many outstanding letters of recommendations from military officers, 27 on the ACT, in the 17% class rank, participated in the Summer STEM camp at USNA, will be participating in Boys State this summer, youth group leader, Military Officers Association of America leadership and academic award.

I am very concerned about how this will impact my ability to get a scholarship. Please share your thoughts on how this information will be interpreted.

Thank you!
Agree with the recommendations to write a great letter addressing this head on. You better work hard to do better than 27 on the ACT, too. That's another issue for you. You might want to try the SAT too. I have twins. My DS aced the SAT but only did above average on the ACT. His sister did exactly the opposite. You have nothing to lose taking both SAT and ACT several more times.
 
You will never know unless you apply. But be prepared to answer the question... You can't be trusted with a car, why should we trust you will a ship, plane or more importantly other people's lives? Heck, I am still trying to figure as a teenager how you kept a license so long and how much insurance must be for all that!
 
I am going to take a different path....there seems to be a disconnect in your resume and your actions, i.e. NJROTC and Eagle Scout. I understand youthful indiscretions, but they are looking for leaders, not followers. I am assuming that these indiscretions were more about following than leading....being cool among your friends in their eyes than using common sense to say this is dangerous. Isn't NJROTC and Eagle Scout about leadership? Did you miss that aspect in your training?

As others have said you have nothing to lose by applying, and now the real answer. 27 ACT superscore for NROTC is not impo going to be on the safe side for chancing. NROTC and AFROTC both have avgs that are closer to the 30-31 marker.

As far as class standing it means nothing from a chancing point without knowing how competitive your HS is. 17% is not stellar overall, but it can be stellar if 25% go to Ivy. They will look at your HS profile, and that is part of the process known as PAR (Prior Academic Record), Your ACT will also be part of PAR, along with your cgpa, weight and point scale (4.5 or 5.0 for AP, 7 point or 10 point for grades), course rigor, plus how many AP/IB classes are offered compared to how many you took, plus the pre-reqs to take those advanced courses. I.E. you will not be dinged if you only took 4 APs because of prereqs and limited number offered. You will be dinged if there were no pre-reqs and you took very few when given the opportunity.

Your feathers in your cap are your ECs, such as Eagle Scout and sports.

Do I think that your driving record will impact you? No. Do I think as a Mom that I want you driving on the same roads with my kids? NO! Driving is a privilege and not a right. Ten will get me twenty that I bet you also have texted while driving too. I really hope that you have learned your lesson and remember that you are driving 2 tons of metal that can kill me and my family. I am with Navyhoops, I would not even want to fathom how much your car insurance bill is currently, hence, why if you were my child that car would have been taken away or at the very least you would be picking up the insurance bill.
~ The past is the past, but in your honest post, we are not talking about 1, 2 times...3 times...and running away too. How old are you? 17? How long have you had your license? 1 yr?
~~ Spit on me 1x shame on you. Spit on me 2x shame on me. Heres me guilting you...you spat on your folks 3x.

I do not know what you want to do in the military, but this may come back and bite you again later on. Many career fields require a top secret security clearance where you will submit paperwork and they will ask questions regarding police actions. You will have to answer YES to those questions. Keep your nose clean from now on so in 4 years from now they see it as a stupid 17 year old.
~ FYI, had you done any of these actions in ROTC at college you would have had to report it to your Commander within 48-72 hrs. 1 time and you probably would get the slap on your wrists, but by the 2nd they probably would have placed you on the review list...mess up again and you are out, which means you would owe them the scholarship money back.
~~ You state you have these outstanding letters from the military. Have you been honest to them and told them about these actions, because if they do know about them, I highly doubt they would write outstanding letters.

Time to become a leader, use common sense and understand that with every action you take there is a reaction. It is Prom season, and I work somewhere that many kids are renting tuxes. As I hand them off that tux I say to them the exact same statement...no texting or selfies in the car! Let's hope you now understand why I am saying that.
 
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Application states: "Have you ever been arrested, convicted, or fined for any violation of law?" Yes or No
Then it asks you to "give a complete description of incident(s) and if applicable state name and place of court, nature of offense, date and disposition of case (if selected as a cadet/midshipman, in order to grant a Security Clearance, a complete background investigation will be made. Failure to report any such incident may be grounds for dismissal.)"

Apply and see what happens. You will never know for certain what helped (or hurt) your application. Your driving record, your ACT score, your essays, your grades, your interview, etc. all become part of the total package that is evaluated.
 
I am in no way condoning your reckless behavior.

I would make sure your answer the application completely and accurately. I would assume your were never arrested, but you were convicted or fined so answer yes. The accident does not need to be reported only the conviction and/or fine.
You state,
I have been convicted of reckless driving but the charge was dropped
This does not make sense to me. It would make more sense that you were ticketed and the charges were dropped. At this point it is not asking if you were ticketed, it is only asking conviction or fine. Report what they are asking for, no more no less.
 
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