I'm interested in going into the marines after hopefully attending USNA as well, and I was wondering, do the mids that go to the marines ever go to ocs?
No. However, the majority of them attend summer training such as Mountain Warfare and Leatherneck (which is USNA's weak equivalent to OCS).
Re: TBS
Just curious re: goldfarb's other Marine perceptions.
He seems to find USNA+Leatherneck "weaker" than OCS. Academy grads tend to outperform OCS Marines @ The Basic School (the six-month Quantico training required of all new USMC officers, regardless of their commissioning source).
Btw, that Shipmates article linked above is great -- unfortunately the Academy eliminated the MCTRAMID training it mentions, due to budget problems.
Wow. Quite a statement.
What is your definition of TBS, then?
Does performance at TBS correlate directly to being a good USMC Officer?
Who owns them if they don't pass and graduate from TBS?That said the Marine Corps owns them but they are not "Marines" until they attend and pass TBS "The Basic School" Upon graduation from TBS they are officially Marine officers and head off to the fleet.
Like anything at the Academy, being selected to become a Marine is a competitive process. The rough numbers are: 400-425 1C mids will service select Marine Corps this fall. The Marines will accept about 250. The Marine option is hardly a slam dunk.
On Tuesday my mid reports to Leatherneck at Quantico along with about 200 of her class mates. Leatherneck is a 4 week experience that is supposed to help mids decide if the Marines are really what they want. At the same time the Marines are evaluating each mid as to their suitability to be a Marine. Leatherneck is not a pleasant experience for the mids who chose to attend but a necessary one.
Upon returning to the yard, this fall, all 1C mids fill out their service selection choices by order of preference. Sometime in December they are notified as to what service selection they received.
Those who received their choice to become Marines will graduate in May as Marine 2nd LT's. That said the Marine Corps owns them but they are not "Marines" until they attend and pass TBS "The Basic School" Upon graduation from TBS they are officially Marine officers and head off to the fleet.
Who owns them if they don't pass and graduate from TBS?
Those numbers are way off. This year's new firsties have more Marine wannabe's than most classes but it'll really only be about 300-350 who want it, and USMC wants just short of 300 grads. So I doubt more than twenty won't get it, most of those will be honor cases, conduct cases, and fat-bodies, in that order.
Also, the process for service "assignment" is also changing, we've been briefed on the changes but we'll see how it actually turns out.