I know you also posted on the VA thread, but I wanted to place this here because of PSU.
Since your DS is going to re-apply to the USNA, contact the ROTC commands at both schools. Ask point blank statistically how many get an apptmt out of their command?
Find out also how many they typically put up for SAs out of the school. The reason why I state this is because they will write recs for the cadet. If 6 apply, than one of those cadets will get the "golden rec" where the CC is going to say my NUMBER 1, and it might even say out of 6. The others will than be watered down in wording to ONE of my Top cadets, watered down even more to a strong cadet. That is the military system. They use particular key words to tell the boards where the cadet is standing in their review.
You should also inform the CC of your intentions to reapply. You need to do this because these recs for noms will be due in the fall. If you show up in Aug., and drop this in their lap late Sept and it is due in 2 weeks, they will not be happy.
Reason why is PSU is a very large cadre. The CC will not only have to be dealing with that and not know your child, but other things. People tend to forget there are several boards that occur in the course of the yr., and the major one is career field. I don't know about NROTC, but for AFROTC, there are 2 career boards, one is rated, and one is non-rated. The commanders submit reviews for every cadet that will be graduating. Also for the AFROTC there is a summer training board, which also requires CC review. That is on top of just the plain old mentoring reviews. Take a cadre of 200+ cadets and that is a lot of paperwork.
One other thing is to make sure to ask if there is an ROTC dorm at PSU. VT has a CoC dorm. If your DS wants to enjoy that military atmosphere as close as it can be mimicked to an SA, living in dorms with ROTC cadets will give him one more perspective.
Not every college has ROTC dorms even if they have a large section of ROTC students. Our DS is at UMDCP. I can guarantee you that between the 3 ROTCs they could easily fill one dorm, but that is not their system. Their system is to dorm them academically as in: Scholars, Honors, Gemstone and traditional.
Last, one issue is distance. I don't know if this is your 1st or last child to go to college, but I can tell you distance does matter in their freshman yr. DD attends VT (not ROTC), it is 4 hrs away and she couldn't wait to fly the coop. We told her we supported her decision, but hoped she realized that we would not be driving 16 hrs (8 hrs total ea way) to bring her home for a 3 day weekend. She was okay with that, however, without fail Columbus day rolled around and she wanted to come home because everyone else was going home. If VT is going to be the same distance as PSU than the point is moot, but if one is considerably closer than the other, it is something you should consider. PSU and VT are big football schools. When the team is home everyone is there, when it is away dorms empty out at a higher rate.