Final decision already?

vareporter

5-Year Member
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Nov 29, 2010
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My son applied for the NROTC scholarship. He also started the process to join the Navy Reserves. So we have established a relationship with his local recruiter and I feel confident with the information he passes on to us.

Today I get a phone call from his recruiter saying he wasn't selected to receive a scholarship. I am sort of confused. I thought the board continued to meet and make selections until April. Have things changed that drastically this year?

I'm not pouting and throwing a tantrum because my son didn't get it....as I knew his chances were small with a tier 3 major. But I'm just a little surprised that all the decisions have been made already. If what the recruiter said is true, it might be that only those already notified are getting a scholarship????
 
I suspect the recruiter was saying that your son didn't receive a scholarship from the latest board. If indeed he was telling you that your son will not meet any future boards and is out of contention for a NROTC scholarship then yes that is unusual and would be the first time this year I have heard of anybody being notified they were "done" by the NROTC. You might want to follow-up with a phone call to the recruiter for clarification. Good Luck!:thumb:
 
Good point. He may not even realize that there are multiple board meetings. My son was the first ROTC package he had done.
 
I realize this is a loaded question, but what the heck (flak jacket on)

isn't the local recruiter's job to get people to enlist? Do they get credit (or however their OML is established) when a potential enlistee goes NROTC instead?

Just trying to figure out how the recruiter butters his/her bread... as Deep Throat said: "follow the money".
 
However, my son had his application in in November and his status has read that everything was in, yet no decision made since early December. So his package should have been reviewed at the very least two times. And, yet, this is the only phone call we've gotten.
 
I don't really understand where the incentive is for a recruiter to spend his/her time helping someone with a ROTC package. My son's recruiter told me ROTC does not fall under a normal recruitment category. That being said, none of the recruiters really pushed my son to choose active duty enlisted or reserves....that was until his ASVAB scores came in and he scored a 98. Then they sent him to MEPS to take the DLAB, and he scored a 133. Suddenly everyone was much more interested in helping. Hmm.
 
RE: the scholarship. Not everyone rolls over to the next board. The ones that are on cusps do roll over, but sometimes they know from the WCS and the amount of scholarships left if they will continue to be in play. If they are looking at the score from a historical POV( previous yr boards), they may say game over.

When I say cusps, it can vary, it maybe a cusp issue of the type of scholarship or no scholarship at all.
 
If the recruiter's responses don't seem sensible, I would seek information form another source. My son's recruiter was a straight shooter but I've heard other stories - Their primary goal is to recruit into enlisted ranks.
 
Squirrelly is correct, a recruiter has recruitment goals to meet. It is important to understand that fact.
 
vareporter said:
I don't really understand where the incentive is for a recruiter to spend his/her time helping someone with a ROTC package
Well, since over 50% of Board Eligibile ROTC applicants are not offered a 4 Yr. Scholarship, I would imagine that in May or June quite a number of them would be inclined to enlist in the Reserves through said local Recruiter, thus getting said recruiter one enlistment closer to whatever his/her quota is. Alternately, I suppose that even before hearing back from the Board, some would be induced to enlist in Reserves and then if they get the Scholly, go SMP.
 
Also for the Navy they tend to have a lot of eager 17 yos who want to go Marines or Seals.

Seals is very, very competitive as an officer. As hard as it is to get in it as an enlisted member, remember for every 1 officer, there are 6-10 enlisted. Thus, it is much, much more competitive, especially when you throw in USNA candidates.

Take a candidate who comes from a family that has no military experience and has yet to find a forum like this one; it is easy to see how they can convince a kid to go enlisted.

Also, I know the Marines have a very unique program, that other ROTCs don't. Basically, they enlist, go to basic, and then they get college paid for as a reservist, upon graduation they are commissioned as an officer. I am not sure of all of the details, that is just the broad brush strokes I know.

That sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and for the recruiter...notice they go in as enlisted, but for the kid they come out as an officer. For many that is a win-win.
 
I recall when my DS was going through this that EVERYTHING is done initially through the Navy recruiter. NROTC was a much different procedure than AROTC or AFROTC. When the board announces a scholarship, it is the local Navy recruiter who is supposed to make the first telephone call to the student, not the PMS of the school to which the student has applied.

Nationally, there are about 7 major Navy recruiting stations (major cities). At this office building, there is a Chief Petty Officer who's full-time job is NROTC (I think the title is "Scholarship Coordinator" or something). Reporting to him or her are the local recruiters at the local recuiting offices (each scholarship coordinator has many reporting to him/her in, say, a 100-mile radius to the office in which s/he resides). The name of the local Navy recruiter is on the NROTC application itself.

That said, I'm sure the NROTC PMSs get a list as well and are quick to pick up the phone to the individual candidate if selected.

So back to dunninla's OP, my basic post is this: Navy does things differently than the other ROTCs. The role of a Navy recruiter in this process is much different than an Army or AF recruiter. The Navy has specifically charged the local recruiters with the NROTC mission.
 
NROTC have sent emails telling applicants they have not been successful. I presume they already know they have a small number of scholarships left and the number of people rolled over from previous boards is way above the remaining scholarships available.

Two kids in my sons JROTC that have been board eligible for a few months both received rejection emails in the last 24 hours.
 
NROTC have sent emails telling applicants they have not been successful..
Ouch! I believe the AFROTC did the same thing to some applicants back in December. These scholarships are getting harder and harder to earn...:eek:
 
To squirlly's comment, I feel confident that they aren't trying to pull one over on him. He was never going to go active duty enlisted. They knew that from the start. He was always going to go reserves. So as far as they're concerned he could go NROTC or reserves and it would be the same for them. At least with the Navy, if one signs up for the reserves and then gets the scholarship, they just transfer you over to NROTC.

The only difference for my son is he would start college in the fall if he got the scholarship. Instead, now he'll go to boot camp and then to the Defense Language Institute in California for a year to study Russian or Arabic. Once he's finished with school there, he'll come home and go to college. A nice bonus is the DLI has a program to help the guys and girls complete their associate's degree while they're there. Between the college classes he's taken as a senior and the AP classes he's scored 5's in and the DLI credits, he will likely come back home as a junior in college. So if you do the numbers, he actually comes out better doing it this way. The only difference is he's an enlisted reservist instead of an officer. But considering he was never planning on making a career of the Navy (he wants to work for the CIA or FBI) this path is the best one for him. So goes the addage "Everything happens for a reason."

Good Luck to everyone else. It's obviously VERY tough this year. My son is in a Governor's School, which is a very selective school with extremely high academic standards. He maintains a 3.9 GPA. He scored a 1360 on the SAT and a 30 on the ACT. He a competitive cyclist and competes on the academic bowl team. His grandfather was a Navy pilot, retired after 28 years. His father was a Navy nuke, who spent 10 years in the Navy. I don't know what they were looking for this year, but he wasn't it.
 
Good Luck to everyone else. It's obviously VERY tough this year. My son is in a Governor's School, which is a very selective school with extremely high academic standards. He maintains a 3.9 GPA. He scored a 1360 on the SAT and a 30 on the ACT. He a competitive cyclist and competes on the academic bowl team. His grandfather was a Navy pilot, retired after 28 years. His father was a Navy nuke, who spent 10 years in the Navy. I don't know what they were looking for this year, but he wasn't it.

Your son has sterling credentials! I'm sure this is discouraging for 98% of the applicants this year. But why not just simply continue to charge ahead as planned and matriculate and compete for other scholarship opportunities/financial aid (i.e., loans)?

Despite what the various threads on SAF might suggest, the real prize is NOT about winning an ROTC scholarship or gaining admission to a military academy. It is about earning a commission from the President of the United States, not simply because it is a noble profession, but rather because of all the management experience that comes along with it and the doors that will open for the ex-officer for no other reason than because of his or her experience. The "numbers" totally bear this out.

If you look at future job prospects alone (setting aside the issue of how well one is prepared to perform that job), the distinction between officers and enlisted works the same way that education does. Those with simply a high-school diploma typically have a harder time, statistically, of landing a good-paying job than those who have a college degree. Similarly, officers enjoy a substantial edge (because of prior leadership/management experience) over enlisted in the same age-bracket (i.e., not NCOs, but junior enlisted) in terms of hiring upon separation from service. If you compare the earning power of a junior enlisted service member (say, $50,000) to that of a junior officer (say, $100,000) and span that difference over 10 years or so (giving the bright enlisted member sufficient time to catch up to the officer in terms management experience), that is a difference of at least $500,000 -- far more than any scholarship award. In fact, one could go non-scholarship ROTC and use the additional income to service student-loan debt and STILL come out ahead financially than someone who gives up on this path. And these numbers do not factor in bonuses, raises or cost-of-living increases!

If you take your average enlisted and average officer who separated at the same time (and one is NOT better than the other), a $50,000 difference in salary spread out over 30 years comes to a whopping $1,500,000 (plus interest!). Compare that to your average college graduate with NO military experience.

Currently, about 85% of new college graduates are living at home with their parents without a job. A 2LT in the Army is making $33,408, plus bonuses and allowances; your DS will make half that amount as an E-1.

And even if you do decide that a career as an officer in the military is your "thing" (and thus don't care about the "numbers" discussed above), the ONLY way you're going to get there is through one of the commissioning sources discussed on SAF.

I do not have any skin in this game (I'm just a normal parent), but I urge everyone to think about this as scholarship decisions are announced. The "grand prize" is the commission, not the scholarship.
 
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Your son has sterling credentials! I'm sure this is discouraging for 98% of the applicants this year. But why not just simply continue to charge ahead as planned and matriculate and compete for other scholarship opportunities/financial aid (i.e., loans)?

I do not have any skin in this game (I'm just a normal parent), but I urge everyone to think about this as scholarship decisions are announced. The "grand prize" is the commission, not the scholarship.

Totally agree. One of your best post yet. Whatever it takes to commission is the goal, scholarship cadet just adds icing to the cake.
 
Your son has sterling credentials! I'm sure this is discouraging for 98% of the applicants this year. But why not just simply continue to charge ahead as planned and matriculate and compete for other scholarship opportunities/financial aid (i.e., loans)?
We are somewhat discouraged by the prospect of "scholarships" these days. My daughter, who is in her second year of engineering at the University of Virginia, graduated from the same Governor's School with a GPA of 4.3, was 5th in her class of 100, had virtually the same SAT score as her brother, was a competitive cross country athlete, and got zero dollars in scholarship money from her university or any outside organizations. 90 percent of the scholarship applications assess your financial need along with your academics. She did receive scholarship money from Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech and various other out of state schools she applied to. But (not a coincidence at all) all scholarships made the amount of tuition at those out of state schools EXACTLY what her instate tuition is at UVa. Coincidence? I think not.

My family is like many. We're blessed enough to make way too much to qualify for financial aid, but not enough to shell out $20,000 a year per student for their education. It's a fine-tuned system. Every family fills out the FASFA. FASFA told my family we are able to contribute $30,000 a year to my daughter's education. (Yeah, RIGHT!!! Only if we don't want to eat). That FASFA form goes to every school your child applies to, even though you KNOW there's no way you're getting financial aid. So many of the scholarships are not just academically based now, if you send in a FASFA that says your family can contribute $30,000 a year, forget it, you're not getting any money.

So my son is watching my daughter acquiring $80,000 of debt for her undergraduate college education and is just not interested in doing the same. As a reservist, he will be offered some of the same GI Bill and tuition reimbursement opportunities that active duty personnel get. So it all comes down to money for school at this point for my son and most likely a great number of other young men and women.

Also, it's my understanding that participating in ROTC, at least for the Navy and Air Force right now, does NOT guarantee one a commission after graduation. Can someone correct me on that if I'm wrong? In fact, my daughter knows some AFROTC students at UVa that were completely released from their contract in their junior year....and these are engineering students that had performed well.
 
Pantesq, Don't get me wrong, I agree with what you've said for the most part. The difference is you're looking at it from the perspective of a 20-year career.
 
In fact, my daughter knows some AFROTC students at UVa that were completely released from their contract in their junior year....and these are engineering students that had performed well.
While your daughter may know them, and they may be engineering students, and they may have been released from AFROTC, unless someone has access to their detachment's AFROTC records I would think they must not have "performed well".

Has you son received official word that he is no longer going to be reviewed by future NROTC boards and have you confirmed that? I may have missed what the final outcome was from your original post.
 
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