Thinking about ROTC

thomasprolar

5-Year Member
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Oct 11, 2012
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So... I'm a Junior in highschool and I am thinking about enrolling in an ROTC scholarship when I can start applying for colleges.
I was wondering just how hard it is to get a 4 year scholarship.
I plan on either going to University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign or Northern Illinois University!
I have checked on the GoArmy website under ROTC, schools... and it says both these schools give out 40 scholarships every year.
Is it for incoming freshmen or does it include the Soph,Jun,Seniors?
Are my chances pretty high?
_________________________________________________
-3.6 GPA
-Youth Group student leader
-High school leadership core
-Varsity letter, golf (will it matter if it is golf or does it count as a varsity letter?)
-Scholastic Bowl
-National Honors Society
_________________________________________________
Havent taken the ACT yet, but estimated score is 28

Thanks so much!
 
OK...first off you don't enroll in an ROTC scholarship, you enroll in ROTC and apply for a scholarship. I'm going to assume you are only talking about Army ROTC since you consulted goarmy.com. I would be very surprised if those schools give out 40 scholarships every year. I would also guess that whatever number you saw was probably advertising freshman scholarships (4 year high school scholarships). As you will see over and over your chances are 0% if you don't apply, and it's very hard for us to tell you what you chances are since there are so many variables. So, what should you do? In the late spring or early summer you should start your application and plan to have your application complete by next October if possible. Prepare for and take your SAT and ACT before then and do well. Talk to each of those school ROTC battalions and visit them if possible. Do what you can to build your scholar/athlete/leader credentials. And then hope for the best. Remember also that if you really want to be an Army Officer and you don't get a scholarship enroll in ROTC when you get to school and do what you have to do to get commissioned.
 
So... I'm a Junior in highschool and I am thinking about enrolling in an ROTC scholarship when I can start applying for colleges.
I was wondering just how hard it is to get a 4 year scholarship.
I plan on either going to University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign or Northern Illinois University!
I have checked on the GoArmy website under ROTC, schools... and it says both these schools give out 40 scholarships every year.
Is it for incoming freshmen or does it include the Soph,Jun,Seniors?
Are my chances pretty high?
_________________________________________________
-3.6 GPA
-Youth Group student leader
-High school leadership core
-Varsity letter, golf (will it matter if it is golf or does it count as a varsity letter?)
-Scholastic Bowl
-National Honors Society
_________________________________________________
Havent taken the ACT yet, but estimated score is 28

Thanks so much!

I may be wrong but I don't read the 40 number that way. The way I read it is there are 40 scholarships available to cadets enrolled at those schools. One of them (didn't check both) have about 100 cadets. So If there are, lets say, 20 seniors, 10 of whom have scholarships, graduate and commission this year; then 10 scholarships would be freed up for freshman next year. Continuing with the example and just guessing that about 40 freshman enroll in ROTC, then you would have about a 25% chance of getting a scholarship. That of course is just based on the numbers and has nothing to do with your quality as a candidate. (Disclaimer: I'm not an AROTC expert).

You'll need to provide a lot more info for anyone to chance you but one thing everyone here will tell you is that you have no chance if you don't apply. If you don't get a scholarship you can always join ROTC without the scholarship and compete for an in-school scholarship.

Good luck.
 
Kinnem...I would look at a school with 100 cadets as breaking out a little differently, knowing that scholarships have become harder to get than in prior years, and also knowing that a lot of MSI and some MSII, drop out:

15 MSIV, 12 on scholarship, 3 Contracted not on scholarship
15 MSIII, 12 on scholarship, 3 Contracted not on scholarship
25 MSII, 10 on scholarship, 15 un-contracted (5 of the Uncontracted gain approval to move to MSIII, with 2 earning 2-Yr. scholarships as well)
45 MSI, 6 on scholarship, 39 un-contracted

I could be way off, but that is the feel I get from posts taking about 30-40 freshmen MSI and a lot dropping out. I don't know how National Guard and SMP fit into those numbers at all... I think it gets really complicated. For example, of the 39 uncontracted MSI cadets, perhaps 10-12 will have joined National Guard are are contracted with Nat. Guard.

Lastly, I don't think the # of scholarships the MSIV class has the year before relates at all to the # that are offered to HS Seniors, or on-campus. Every year the budget changes, and the budgets have gotten smaller the past two years.
 
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Kinnem...I would look at a school with 100 cadets as breaking out a little differently, knowing that scholarships have become harder to get than in prior years, and also knowing that a lot of MSI and some MSII, drop out:

15 MSIV, 12 on scholarship, 3 Contracted not on scholarship
15 MSIII, 12 on scholarship, 3 Contracted not on scholarship
25 MSII, 10 on scholarship, 15 un-contracted (5 of the Uncontracted gain approval to move to MSIII, with 2 earning 2-Yr. scholarships as well)
45 MSI, 6 on scholarship, 39 un-contracted

I could be way off, but that is the feel I get from posts taking about 30-40 freshmen MSI and a lot dropping out. I don't know how National Guard and SMP fit into those numbers at all... I think it gets really complicated. For example, of the 39 uncontracted MSI cadets, perhaps 10-12 will have joined National Guard are are contracted with Nat. Guard.

Lastly, I don't think the # of scholarships the MSIV class has the year before relates at all to the # that are offered to HS Seniors, or on-campus. Every year the budget changes, and the budgets have gotten smaller the past two years.

You're probably correct dunninla. I was modeling it on my kids NROTC unit which has about 20 seniors and about 100 total. Also, his freshman class started out at about 44 and are now down to about 25 sophomores. Of course the other thing I was trying to do was to work with round numbers. :smile:

You also raise a good point on the number of scholarships changing each year. In any case I was trying to point out to OP that there will not be 40 scholarships awarded to the incoming freshman class at the colleges he's looking at, and how it works, even though it mentions 40 scholarships at goarmy.

In either case, hopefully OP gets the point that the number of scholarships they will award to incoming freshman is far fewer than what he imagines.

Thanks for keeping me straight!
 
A 28 ACT would put you a little over the mean (26 ACT), a higher ACT would help a lot.
Any elected position in Student Gov/club helps.
2 yrs w/a varsity letter is better than 1 yr. If Golf is a varsity sport, it counts.
AP/Honors class would also help your chances.
Joining another competitive sport would be good, track or cross country may help you on your Army ROTC PT test 2 mile run.

You probably want more than two college choices, are you IL instate? Major?
What are you thinking about your future in the Army?

PMed you a link
 
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