Quality vs Quantity?

txpotato

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My son is currently applying for an AROTC Scholarship. As a home schooler in a state without equal access, it is often a struggle to find opportunities to lead and serve. As a result, we feel that his resume is lacking compared to his public school counterparts.

Do the boards look at quality of accomplishments (swim team captain, shift leader at work, volunteer at Veteran's Museum, junior coach) versus an endless list of (sometimes) resume fillers?

To further boost his chances, he included all in-state schools (except Clemson) where he'd already been accepted and received full tuition scholarships based on his ACT (30). He has a 4.09 cgpa.

His top four schools are Univ of Alabama, Auburn, Univ of South Alabama and Clemson. Major is nursing.

One final word, his PMS interview was great. We traveled down to Tuscaloosa, and he met with the colonel who home schools his own kids.
 
For AFROTC quality is always placed over quantity because it illustrates long term dedication, ROTC is long term.

I hope posters see this post because it has become a topic regarding scholarships, esp. AROTC.

Your post has driven home the fact that you need to be cognizant of applicants for each college and how it may impact you.

Personally, nursing major, with a 30 which is at least a 1320 SAT, don't worry. He has leadership under his belt. He has time management ---sports, work and volunteering. The only thing is the cgpa, but the 1320 will support the home school gpa.

He also has early acceptances to all of his ISs with big merit packages.
 
My son is currently applying for an AROTC Scholarship. As a home schooler in a state without equal access, it is often a struggle to find opportunities to lead and serve. As a result, we feel that his resume is lacking compared to his public school counterparts.

Do the boards look at quality of accomplishments (swim team captain, shift leader at work, volunteer at Veteran's Museum, junior coach) versus an endless list of (sometimes) resume fillers?

To further boost his chances, he included all in-state schools (except Clemson) where he'd already been accepted and received full tuition scholarships based on his ACT (30). He has a 4.09 cgpa.

His top four schools are Univ of Alabama, Auburn, Univ of South Alabama and Clemson. Major is nursing.

One final word, his PMS interview was great. We traveled down to Tuscaloosa, and he met with the colonel who home schools his own kids.

He should be just fine and competitive.

There have been a few applicants that were home schooled on this board over the past couple years that received scholarships.

Your son seems to have some good leadership positions and swim team captain will help a lot. Academics look great.

My son did attend public school but a a good number of his leadership positions came from outside school; Boy Scouts/Eagle, Youth in Gov. through the YMCA, Youth Group Senior Leader. The boards look just as favorably at these as they do the school activities.

I will agree that quality will mean more then quantity. I've seen some resumes that include an endless list of club participation, unless the applicant is a president of each of those clubs it sort of becomes white noise.

Best of luck to your son.

On a side note, I was able to visit Alabama last June when I drove with my son to Ft. Rucker. Had a great time, my son is enjoying the Southern Hospitality....and the trips to Panama Beach of course.
 
Since he is an intended nursing major and his stats are rather good I would almost consider him a shoe-in for a scholarship.

The biggest obstacle I have seen for nursing majors in AROTC is not so much getting a scholarship but keeping it. Some schools have conditional acceptances to the School of Nursing while others ask you to apply at the end of of your Freshman year. Either way, if you do not successfully get into the program or get dropped because of grades you lose the scholarship. My school had tons of JC/CC applicants which made organic matriculation even harder (320ish applied 80 got in). In the past I saw many pre-nursing students who couldn't get in to the major transfer to a line scholarship and commission just fine. Recently that is very very difficult (Unless you are a colonel's kid, which I have seen happen...) unless the cadre really want you to continue and there are funds available.

Good luck
 
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I would almost consider him a shoe-in for a scholarship.

If the school only has 10 4yr Army ROTC Scholarships allocated, and has already allocated those 10 4yr Army ROTC Scholarships, then the student has a 0% chance of receiving a 4yr Army ROTC Scholarship to that school through the national board process.

School Choice is THAT important.

Student could still be allocated the scholarship to a different school or compete for On Campus Scholarships.
 
If the school only has 10 4yr Army ROTC Scholarships allocated, and has already allocated those 10 4yr Army ROTC Scholarships, then the student has a 0% chance of receiving a 4yr Army ROTC Scholarship to that school through the national board process.

School Choice is THAT important.

Student could still be allocated the scholarship to a different school or compete for On Campus Scholarships.

That is true, I was just looking at it from the nursing perspective for a 4 OR 3 year scholarship. Perhaps my school was an oddity in that we had 1 or 2 nursing scholarships available every year usually because we could never make mission set because of the constant attrition. However, that was definitely not the case this past year with line scholarships as we had 30 people going after 3 line slots.

You are are right though it is really school dependent, but in general nursing has less up-front barriers if slots are available.
 
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