AROTC scholarship

is the selection similar to that of the service academy where they try and select candidates from each district/state?

NamD said:

is the selection similar to that of the service academy where they try and select candidates from each district/state?

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No. The selection is made by a national board comprised of ROTC faculty from around the country that meets three times this year (the actual composition of individual board members for each board changes, though). The board reviews all applications submitted in time to be considered for the board (for example, for the October 17 board, the deadline is October 10 to have all materials submitted to Cadet Command). This board then generates a rank-ordered list of the applicants appearing before that board, and this is done without regard to the geographic origin or the college-choice selections of the applicant.

Once the applications are rank ordered, Cadet Command determines the number of scholarships that it may award for that particular board (this may occur before the board meets or could happen on the fly like it did last year in the January and March boards). Although the target number of scholarships to be awarded in the October board has likely already been determined, the number of awards for the two boards in 2012 will likely depend on how the Army's budget eventually shapes up (this depends heavily on congressional debates that are especially heated this year, as you may have seen in the press).

If the number of scholarships for the October board is "X", Cadet Command then informs the top "X" applicants that they have been offered a scholarship. The remaining applicants are then cycled to the next board. Note that as time goes on, and you are not selected for a scholarship by the October board (and thus bumped to the January board), your rank on the rank-ordered list may actually go down because higher-qualified candidates may have submitted their applications after the October board (e.g., in December). If, however, you barely missed the rank-order cut-off for the October board and only a few with higher credentials apply in time for the January board, you will very likely be notified in February that you have been awarded a scholarship.

In the past (when there was much greater certainty over the DoD budget), Cadet Command used the October board to set a baseline for the follow-on boards (as you can understand, it's not fair to award the bulk of scholarships in October when the announced deadline for individuals to submit their applications is January). That said, however, there is no guarantee that our congressional budget battles won't throw a monkey wrench into that plan and that the numbers from the two boards in 2012 will be lower than the October 17, 2011 board. Bottom line: Get your packet ready for the October board.

If I have missed something, other SAF members will supplement this response with their own thoughts.

Good luck!

That has answered alot of questions. thank you very much!!