Service Selection Competition

USNA18

5-Year Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2013
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As I am beginning to wonder what kind of service I might be interested in selecting, I was wondering if anyone knew what degree of difficultly there was to getting SWO, marine air, marine ground, subs, and navy air? Thanks


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It all depends on the year. Sometimes not enough people want to go SWO, sometimes there are too many. This past year there were too many SWO and not enough NFO.
 
As I am beginning to wonder what kind of service I might be interested in selecting, I was wondering if anyone knew what degree of difficultly there was to getting SWO, marine air, marine ground, subs, and navy air? Thanks


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This is from a short conversation w/ my 1C so don't take anything I say to the bank. But here goes:

SWO - edit...cross post with someone more knowledgeable
Marine Air - all who wanted it go it.
Marine Ground - ibid
Subs - no sub draft was necessary so that's seems to indicate they filled the quota - not sure if any who desired subs were left out
Navy Air - not sure, all friends who wanted a pilot slot got open but don't know if some didn't.

Bottom line: getting to the service you want is absolutely possible - depending, of course, on how well you do in the 3+ years leading up to selection day.
 
I'll look later and see if I can find a source but apparently 80% of mids this year got their top choice and 90-something% got one of their top two.

The sneaky little addendums to that are:

1: Your first and second choice may be completely different branches of the military since you are only allowed to put down one Marine Corps choice

2: Those who aren't qualified for or are basically told not to bother puttting down their "real" first choice may get what on paper is their first choice, but isn't actually what they want.

But, generally, if you perform reasonably well there are enough people who want different things that getting your top choice is very achievable.
 
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