AFROTC Drop and/or Cut rate

GemStateMom

5-Year Member
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Nov 4, 2010
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DS's AFROTC detachment started with approx 60 100's last semester. Now down to about 20 before the first year is even over. Just curious as to whether these numbers are typical or not. Seems like a lot more being cut or dropping than I would have thought....
 
DS's AFROTC detachment started with approx 60 100's last semester. Now down to about 20 before the first year is even over. Just curious as to whether these numbers are typical or not. Seems like a lot more being cut or dropping than I would have thought....

I can't speak to AFROTC or even what's average. I can say DS's NROTC unit has lost 25-30% of its freshman. As far as I know they all decided to drop of their own accord. I believe the majority left during orientation.
 
DS's AFROTC detachment started with approx 60 100's last semester. Now down to about 20 before the first year is even over. Just curious as to whether these numbers are typical or not. Seems like a lot more being cut or dropping than I would have thought....

Our detachment started with about 80 cadets, by the start of the 200 year, there was about 25 cadets. Now into FTP we have 18. The trend is that about 60-70% of the beginning class won't finish through the program.
 
Our DS's det started with 100, freshman yr, by end of spring semester had 50, but than the following fall they were back up to 70 because sophs in college decided to join.
They had 55% selection rate for SFT, so they went down to @40 +/-. That is basically the number his class ended with for commissioning right now.

The reason you see the big drop is because they can leave before SFT with no harm/no foul and thus, many as freshman decide waking up at 5 a.m to run in the rain is not their cup of tea and leave. Those on scholarship and who can only afford to stay will be less inclined to bounce.

If you accept that only 30-40% will commission, and selection rate is 55%, you can see the bulk comes from the 1st 2 yrs.

daniel, did they release the SFT results? If I am correct FTP (Field Training Program) is for 200's at least it was for DS. That means if you have 18, and if 65%, which would be high attend SFT, for your school, only 11 would commission out of 80 cadets, which is about 15%. That is a low percentage. Or are you say 25 were up, but 18 were selected which would make more sense.
 
seems pretty reasonable to say that only 15-20 percent of the total from 100 year will ever commission. At my det (stats from last year) there were about 80 one hundreds to start out and 40 dropped out before fall 200 year. During FTP year, those 40 compete for EAs. At the det the average EA selection was around 50%. Add in to the factor cadets that got injured/disenrolled before and after field training, so now down to around 16 300 lvl POC.

This year is proving to be a little different at the det as ICSP is back. More of the 100's are interested in sticking around for the small hope of getting money. We have around 60 of 80 100's staying till the end of the spring school year.

My current class of 200's got hit hard with having no ICSP scholarships available during their 100 year. About 2 of the 40 in my class got the ICSP this fall. We are now down to about 30 FTP cadets starting this semester, which is 10 less than last. I am told (via rumors/friends from other dets) that this is a trend seen across almost all detachments this year having 10-20% less FTP cadets competing for EAs. This could be good in terms of selection for those who stuck it out, as it is rumored that there are 200 more slots available and a new MAX.

But who really knows these things!...
 
Back in fall 2008 my AS100 class started out with about 60-70 cadets. Only about 10-15 of us will be commissioning this May.

Most people quit on their own during or right after freshman year. Either because they didn't think it was for them, or they couldn't pick up an in-college scholarship.

Then we lost a bunch more at the start of sophomore year with the one's who couldn't keep grades up in the technical majors. They lost their scholarships and either had to pay them back or enlist.

At the end of sophomore year we lost some more with the one's who didn't receive EAs for field training. A lot of them switched ROTCs and will be commissioning in the Army this May.

By the start of junior year we had less than 20 left. Then over the course of junior and senior years we lost a few more for various reasons - grades and civil involvements mostly.


BTW--congrats to all the FY2013 grads who got their pilot slots on Friday!
 
Back in fall 2008 my AS100 class started out with about 60-70 cadets. Only about 10-15 of us will be commissioning this May.

Most people quit on their own during or right after freshman year. Either because they didn't think it was for them, or they couldn't pick up an in-college scholarship.

Then we lost a bunch more at the start of sophomore year with the one's who couldn't keep grades up in the technical majors. They lost their scholarships and either had to pay them back or enlist.

At the end of sophomore year we lost some more with the one's who didn't receive EAs for field training. A lot of them switched ROTCs and will be commissioning in the Army this May.

By the start of junior year we had less than 20 left. Then over the course of junior and senior years we lost a few more for various reasons - grades and civil involvements mostly.


BTW--congrats to all the FY2013 grads who got their pilot slots on Friday!

Thanks for that info, I was going to ask why there was such a large attrition rate in the AFROTC, you explained it well.

I would imagine it will be getting tougher for those second year AFROTC cadets to jump over to AROTC seeing the Army is cutting back and most battalions already have more underclassmen then they need to contract.
 
Our DS's det started with 100, freshman yr, by end of spring semester had 50, but than the following fall they were back up to 70 because sophs in college decided to join.
They had 55% selection rate for SFT, so they went down to @40 +/-. That is basically the number his class ended with for commissioning right now.

The reason you see the big drop is because they can leave before SFT with no harm/no foul and thus, many as freshman decide waking up at 5 a.m to run in the rain is not their cup of tea and leave. Those on scholarship and who can only afford to stay will be less inclined to bounce.

If you accept that only 30-40% will commission, and selection rate is 55%, you can see the bulk comes from the 1st 2 yrs.

daniel, did they release the SFT results? If I am correct FTP (Field Training Program) is for 200's at least it was for DS. That means if you have 18, and if 65%, which would be high attend SFT, for your school, only 11 would commission out of 80 cadets, which is about 15%. That is a low percentage. Or are you say 25 were up, but 18 were selected which would make more sense.

Pima, sorry for not being more in-depth, by the start of our spring semester 2012 here, there were 18 cadets stayed. And the SFT results are being released late March and our packages are being sent out for these boards on the 24th of this month! And yes it is unfortunate that our 200 class is so small. :(
 
here at Riddle we started out with probably 220 Freshman Cadets. By the time 200 year came around we were down to 90 and now at FTP we have 38. Pretty crazy how many people have dropped. Most people dropped out of their own accord there are some exceptions, but yah.
 
here at Riddle we started out with probably 220 Freshman Cadets. By the time 200 year came around we were down to 90 and now at FTP we have 38. Pretty crazy how many people have dropped. Most people dropped out of their own accord there are some exceptions, but yah.

Wow, how many FTP competed last year? That seems extremely low for an Aeronautical School like Embry Riddle.
 
Wow, how many FTP competed last year? That seems extremely low for an Aeronautical School like Embry Riddle.

I expect that the tougher the curriculum the more likely one is to drop. There are other paths to commissioning, so they can come back to that dream later. Focusing on, a good GPA will have a big impact on future employment after the service. JMPO though with absolutely no data to back it up. But there is some anecdotal evidence on the forums.
 
That is an incredible drop from 90 to 38. I don't know if this is an academic issue or if this is a reflection of the det. That is huge, because if you go with @20% of cadets are scholarship it would equate from he 200 to almost all scholarship.

This is a little mind boggling since ERAU proudly states they beat the national avg and after the AFA have the most UPT slots for grads.

This is why many posters here strongly advise talk to the units regarding their stats. Little scary to a parent from a stat perspective that 200 come in, and let's say on a good day 25 commission four yrs later.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. Pima is correct that it is a little scary as a parent looking at the stats. When plans A, B, and C didn't work out and DS opted for the college programmer option, we didn't realize the odds were only at about 15% that he would ever commission with this route. Not that it would have made any difference, I guess, since OCS after college would have been his only other option other than enlisting and going that route. A small chance is better than no chance at all! And I am sure that his odds of commissioning are actually greater than the number above, though, as that number includes those who were just trying it on for size and may not have been very committed.
 
Wow - this is astonishing to me. I guess I wouldn't have had any idea it was so low or that there was a big difference between the branches. My son's NROTC unit is very small (30+ overall, only 12 freshmen). But they only started with 13 freshmen and one dropped very early after Indoc. I don't know if the difference is that everyone is on scholarship there? Maybe that makes them more motivated to stay with it. (Or mom and dad provide the motivation for that reason!).
 
Yah, it's been quite a drop. But I think the drop in cadets was mainly from our class seeing how many EA's were handed out last year. Because of the big drop in EA's last year many cadets decided they didn't want to deal with putting in two years and not knowing whether or not they were actually going to commission. Makes sense... I stuck with it and am now looking forward to finding out about an EA in a month or so!!
 
Yah, it's been quite a drop. But I think the drop in cadets was mainly from our class seeing how many EA's were handed out last year. Because of the big drop in EA's last year many cadets decided they didn't want to deal with putting in two years and not knowing whether or not they were actually going to commission. Makes sense... I stuck with it and am now looking forward to finding out about an EA in a month or so!!

I hope all your hard work pays off. Good luck to you!
 
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