Hi jcleppe. I completely understand and agree with the importance of the APFT once one is in AROTC. Certainly its important to the OML ranking in all services. In NROTC it has no bearing on summer training opportunities as you have no summer training opportunities unless your contracted, and the training opportunities don't really vary when you are contracted. I suppose it could impact ship assignment for Navy option after their sophmore year, but certainly not your rising sophmore summer. That summer all NROTC MIDN do a week in surface, a week subsurface, a week in aviation and a week with Marines. The entire battalion does this as a unit. I'm sure it makes a difference in leadership opportunities but I'm also confident that it is far diminished compared to the other qualities considered. BTW, the remaing summers for Marines is Mountain Warfare School and then OCS.
I certainly didn't mean to diminish the importance of physical fitness to AROTC (and I don't think you took it that way either). Only wanted to point out the importance of physical fitness to entry to the Marines. I don't think Navy option even have to do a physical fitness test for the scholarship... But they certainly need to meet standards once they're in. Of course Marine standards once you're in are tougher than Navy... and I only mean to point out that they're different because of the different needs of the services... not that one is better than the other.