ROTC Application questions

Nick0726

5-Year Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2013
Messages
100
I'm applying for the 4 year ROTC scholarship next month.

What do you need to complete the application (transcript, letters of recommendation, etc.)?

How long will it be until I'm notified that I have been selected to interview?

On you preferred school list, is it true that you can only list 5 school options?

Is the Army obligated to give you the schoalrship to only these 5 options.

Any advice would be appreciated!
 
I'm applying for the 4 year ROTC scholarship next month.

What do you need to complete the application (transcript, letters of recommendation, etc.)?

How long will it be until I'm notified that I have been selected to interview?

On you preferred school list, is it true that you can only list 5 school options?

Is the Army obligated to give you the schoalrship to only these 5 options.

Any advice would be appreciated!

http://www.nrotc.navy.mil/pdfs/Application_Instructions_and_Information_Checklist.pdf

How long will it be until I'm notified that I have been selected to interview?

I would recommend calling them first and introducing yourself, explain that you plan to apply, etc. They will let you know about the interview after app is completed and submitted.

On you preferred school list, is it true that you can only list 5 school options?

Yes.

Is the Army obligated to give you the schoalrship to only these 5 options.

They could give it to you at any school that has room in the unit, granted your first five are already full.

Do a lot more research, many of the questions you asked can be answered on http://www.nrotc.navy.mil/apply.aspx. Good luck
 
Hi Nick, welcome to the forums and thank you for your desire to serve with the best 1% that America has to offer.

I am assuming that you are SOLEY applying for an Army scholarship? In this case, I have several pointers for you in completing your application.

You are hereby forwarned: navigating the Army portal can be a bit confusing!! When completing your application please note what browser you are using - somewhere in the portal, it states that NOT ALL browsers are compatible - I am a Firefox user ... and had to sulk down to the Internet Explorer world ...

In terms of actually completely your application - I do not recommend you complete the application BEFORE the end of your Jr year. There are no awards/brownie points for finishing first in this case. Besides, if you finish your application now, you can't go back to fix things. Which this might be necessary for your senior year. The Army ROTC scholarship program is the only program which looks at your high school endeavors grades 10-12; all other (Navy + MO and AF) programs look at grades 9-11. So ... if you finish your application now, how are you going to add in all the wonderful activities that you do your senior year. See what I mean?

Also, here's a tip for you in regards to standardized testing. Some applicants (myself included) do not realize the importance of completing all standardized testing BEFORE the end of Jr year. This is where timing is key - for ROTC, for colleges, that wont necessarily matter unless you are applying early action (but also, I wouldn't recommend applying early action unless your are 10000% confident you want to attend that school --> w/ or w/o a scholarship) - but a story for another day. The point is, for the Army ROTC scholarship program, there are only 3 times the board meets to select and award scholarships to applicants. The first board is sometime in October, the 2nd board is January, 3rd board is in March.

Okay - lets look at Board 1 (October). Lets say the board meets ... Oct. 21st (please note; this is NOT the actual date, just an arbitrary number). Lets now take a look at the SAT/ACT exam dates. Unfortunately College Board has not released the exam schedule for the 2013-14 school year - but traditionally it has always been sometime around the first week of October. So, say the exam is held Oct. 8. You may think that this is fine to meet the Oct 21st board deadline but don't forget about that couple weeks it takes to process your results and then send them to Cadet Command. Oops, you just missed the first board --> and blew off your best chance at a 4-year scholarship.

Okay, ACT now. There are two test dates this fall, Sept. 21 and Oct. 26. Take the test on Sept. 21st and do great, you're in great shape for Board 1. Take it on the 26th of Oct. and again you just blew your best shot at a 4-year scholarship.

The point is, take the ACT/SAT now rather than later. If you have not taken them yet to test the waters, I highly recommend you get that squared away ASAP. I would not recommend placing your bets on a single standardized testing exam. You are too late to register for the April 13th ACT exam, but you have plenty of time to register for the June 8th ACT exam and May 4th/June 1st SAT exam. That way, if you at least take one or two now, you have all summer to max out your score in the fall.

For your application, you will not need a letter of recommendation, but you are required to send your high school transcript to Cadet Command along with some paperwork to be filled out by your guidance counselor.

For the AROTC at least, you can interview whenever you want to. The Army's application has no specific orders to complete the application before you interview; different from the AF application which you can only interview after you complete the rest of the application.

Over the summer I would highly recommend that you do some college searching - and if available go on campus on a summer visit day and get a feel for the school. AND if you also have some spare time, set up an appointment with a member of the cadre and introduce yourself. That is exactly what I did for Penn State; went up a summer day and set up an appointment with the Deputy PMS - and a couple months later I had my interview with him. I also did the same for the AF program at Penn State the same day. Here's a little motivation for you to do this - sometimes if you schedule a time to come and talk with the cadre, especially over the summer - that shows that you are taking the initiative. An initiative that sometimes justifies an award. For example, in BOTH cases when I spoke with the cadre of the Army and AF program at Penn State, BOTH gave me valuable insight as to preparing for the interview. My Army interviewer literally gave me all 5 questions he would ask me during my interview during my summer visit ... plus a bag full of AROTC goodies :thumb:

Yes, you can only list 5 of your top schools and in the rare circumstance you are not awarded to one of your top 5, you may be awarded to an alternative school.

Other tips of advice:
If you haven't started conditioning yet for the PT assessment: start NOW. Do not wait until two weeks before your PT assessment to start training. I do not know how are you with runner, but if you are weak at running, do not expect to go out and run for a week or two and get times near a 4 minute mile. One of the things that some people don't realize is that to build a solid base for running, takes time. Not 2 days, not two 2 weeks, but generally over a solid 3-5 weeks to notice any sort of improvement. That also means staying consistent with your training program as well. Don't think that going a super hardcore run today, means that you can compensate by taking off tomorrow. Get in the habit of going on daily runs - and if you like it, join your Cross Country team. Also, don't start off too hard - you will stress your body which may result in injury. Start off small, maybe 1-2 miles (depending on how much you have previously run in the past) and work your way up to 5-6 miles a day. Do this, and you will be in excellent shape for the PT assessment.

I will leave you with one last piece of advice: DON'T slack off senior year. There's been plenty of great, solid and well-rounded people that just got the case of senioritis and dropped the ball. This especially wont fare well for AROTC since senior year activities are considered - and you need to continue to do well to get into your dream college. It all comes down to prioritization and time management.

Don't stress too much over my post. Take it one step at a time and you'll do fine. :thumb:

Best of luck to you!
Thompson
 
Thanks for the advice Thompson, it means a lot.

I'm already registered for the ACT April 13th, and believe me, I'm studying my butt off.

I also have been in contact with ROTC coordinators at schools I'm interested in. Honestly, the process sounds a lot more confusing than I thought! I can rock a PFT right now, I'm in very good shape. I guess I'll just take it one step at a time and pray!
 
ROTC application

There are no awards/brownie points for finishing first in this case. Besides, if you finish your application now, you can't go back to fix things.

I've seen this posted several times on this forum. My son changed/added to his application lots of times. I know this because I was there with him when he did. So was it a fluke that we could do this?

As for the transcript... that needed to be signed by the guidance counselor.... So you do want to wait until it gets closer to the boards so that is updated...

Best of luck to you...
 
Absolutely agree with Cajun, you can go back and update your application as much as you want up the the deadline to meet the board.

Be aware that once your application has been by the board you can only update your SAT/ACT scores and your School selections, everything else is locked in.
 
Absolutely agree with Cajun, you can go back and update your application as much as you want up the the deadline to meet the board.

Be aware that once your application has been by the board you can only update your SAT/ACT scores and your School selections, everything else is locked in.
Yep you can update your application. The bothersome part is that you lose visibility of the updates. You submit the updates and have to trust that they actually make it into your application as you can not see it.
 
My apologies for the misinformation then - suppose I mixed it up with when the application goes before the board.

Any other questions feel free to ask here or PM me if you want.

As for the transcript... that needed to be signed by the guidance counselor.... So you do want to wait until it gets closer to the boards so that is updated...
I see this going both ways - in the sense that, if your grades are good now (Sept.), send it now. Versus - wait until Nov. and your grades drop.

Oh and by the way - when you do send documents to CC, email it, fax it, mail it (if you want), check the portal, ... and just to be sure that CC got it, call/email your CC point of contact (POC). Your POC is the name listed on every single automated letter you getting that informs you of missing parts to your application.
 
One thing I learned last week at the ROO couse was that if you updated/changed your school list it didn't retain the ranking. Can't remember if we were told that it stuck the new schools at the top or bottom of your list, but the bottom line is that updates were problematic. I stick by my recommendation to be patient and make sure you minimize changes to your application. Yes, changes can be made, but there is no guarantee that there won't be issues with trying to update the application.
 
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