BigBus: recommend you search this forum for posts on school ranking. There is a lot of opinions on instate vs out of state; popular vs less popular units; strategy, etc. These discussions pop up often in regards to NROTC.
Here is some advice from a document on the NCSU website:
"Once a board has chosen the hundred or so students it will select, those applications are then sent to a placement department which determines what college/university NROTC unit each scholarship will be assigned to. Obviously, every effort is made to place a student where he/she wants to go, but other factors do come into play. For example, each particular unit (there are roughly 70 total) has a certain ―quota‖ or max number of students that they can accept in a given year. NC State’s quota is usually 30. For us, this means that once 30 students have been placed in our unit and have accepted the scholarship offer, no additional students will be added here. If a 31st student was selected and their application went to placement, they may then be assigned to their number two, three, or four choice of school (again, depending on availability at that school). There are a few ―morals to this story. First, it is very important that you actually apply to all of the five schools that you list on your scholarship application because it is possible that you may not be assigned to your first choice. Second, you want to have your application completed early (before the August board) so that you maximize your odds of being assigned to your first choice (because certain schools, like NC State, tend to fill up fast). Other things that affect placement include whether a certain school would be in-state or out-of-state for a particular student. As you might expect, this doesn’t apply to private schools like Duke, MIT, etc. where there is no difference in tuition and most students come from out-of-state. It does, however, apply to state schools like NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, etc. For these type of schools, the Navy requires that a minimum of 50 percent of students placed there come from within that particular state. It is for this reason that you will be required to place at least one state school on your list of five.
One final comment about placement. When you indicate your school preferences, you must be realistic about your chances of admission! Remember, the university application process is completely separate from the scholarship process and there is NO guarantee of admission to a particular school just because your scholarship gets assigned there."
Source:
http://naval.dasa.ncsu.edu/sites/nav...info-2013F.pdf