“At the Convenience of the Government”
I do not recall seeing that verbiage nor do any of my roommates at TBS
I would also wager that they were referring to your training company. In the past, including when I was assigned to TBS as an instructor BN, most USNA Grads was in the same Company for TBS.
We are now spread out. Based on OOM we chose our TBS start Date. There are USNA grads in Echo, Fox, Golf and I believe there are still 2LT's on TAD at the Academy that will be starting later this fall. Many of us that chose Golf were higher up in OOM.
I can not tell you for sure when the numbers started to go up however I believe the goal is for 25% to go USMC and have heard that the number is going up. Class of 2011 is requiring Leatherneck although as with most things USNA there will always be exceptions. Our class had 257 out of 1033 graduates go Marines.
If you have a ground contract (and actually an aviation one too) you pick you MOS at TBS, that being said if you have already been accepted into the Aviation Community (which is what our contracts state) we can continue down that course or we can choose to release our contract and opt for another selection. As I understand from our briefs, the only way you can select Aviation at TBS is if a contract is being given up thus opening up a spot. Otherwise aviation is already closed. There are those who do well at TBS and decide to forgo aviation inorder to go infantry.
FYI Navy Service Selection:
Some communities have screener and interviews which you go through second class year or very early fall firstie year. Within the first weeks of school firstie year we had to submit 10 ,in order of preference, communities that we would like to join. The only stipulation in the past has been that subs had to appear some where on your list. We did not have to have both USMC ground and USMC Aviation on your list - I did not. I had USMC Pilot first followed by Navy Pilot followed by some of the SWO subcommunities. As I did not go through SEAL screening, I could not put that on the list, however could have EOD and Nuc on the list. In November on service selection day we found out our communities. Then came the sub draft which those who did well in the sciences and math approx 100 were drafted. We were allowed to state our feelings at that time and then they interviewed about half to fill about 25 spots. Women were asked, but no female was forced to go subs.
Then in March we had ship selection night where for the SWO Communities they picked their Ships based on OOM. We also were able to pick start dates for Pensacola, Nuc school, TBS, SEAL training etc.
Somewhere we were told or also heard that all of the Aviation Contracts came from USNA, I was also under that impression until arriving - bad gouge as there are certainly other commissioning source 2LT's with aviation contracts.
If we all want to really get a bit nit picky - no one has a guarantee for Aviation until you are winged. I know of a guy who was OCS and flunked out of IFS, never made it to API or primary. They rolled him out and was not given another USMC choice.