My DS is at USMA now, but we had the plan B in place, as well. When he received his NROTC and AROTC scholarships, he accepted both of those as soon as he received them. (Make sure you accept the scholarship within the timeline that they say you must, even if you have not been admitted to the college, yet). When the May 1st deadline came for making college decisions, he had already accepted his appointment to USMA, had previously declined USNA and then we made the decision that his Plan B school was going to be one that he had received a full-tuition merit scholarship to, that was not one where his NROTC or AROTC scholarships were to, so he declined those scholarships then. We knew we could not afford for him to go to either of those schools without the ROTC scholarships, so we felt that if he were injured and couldn't report for A-day, then we didn't want to take the chance that whatever the injury/illness was would keep him for being able to contract for the NROTC/AROTC scholarships. The plan B school did have ROTC at it though, so the plan would have been, if medically DQed for USMA, that he would have gone to the Plan B school on the merit scholarship and enrolled in ROTC with plans to go to West Point the following year. For us, there was a complicating factor, in that our HS Guidance counselor would not permit our son to "enroll" in two colleges (USMA and Plan B school) at the same time after the May 1st deadline, without us getting special permission from both West Point and the Plan B school saying they were okay with it under the circumstances. Without this permission, she refused to send the final transcripts to both schools, (saying it was an ethics violation pertaining to college admissions) which of course is necessary to secure the spot in the Freshman class before enrollment is locked in. She had also said that if highly selective schools were to somehow find out that the kid had enrolled in 2 schools, they could revoke their admissions offer. We got the permission and a great note from the admissions officer at the Plan B school letting him know that he was a former Army Officer and his son was a USMA grad and would hold his spot and his full scholarship to be used any time he needed it!! Once DS made it to R day, he sent an email to the Plan B admission officer letter, letting him know he made it through Beast and was staying and West Point and no longer needed his slot/scholarship at that college. I have heard that the very selective schools may not be as accommodating due to their wait lists, etc. Our DD, who had both NROTC/AROTC scholarships ran into DODMERB issues. We were stressing until the last day of April (when she was finally medically qualified) and had reached out to the admissions officers at the AROTC school and the NROTC school a couple of weeks before the May 1st college decision deadline, asking if the schools would allow an extension until we could find out if she would be cleared, as we didn't think we would have the issue cleared up in time for the formal deadline. The AROTC school said they would give an extension. The NROTC School (Notre Dame - Where she is a Midshipman now) at first said they wouldn't allow an extension. They finally gave her a couple of extra days, but we ended up not needing the extra days. So it all worked out in the end for both of them, but we definitely wanted to keep all options open, as long as possible, in case something happened.