What are my chances of being awarded an NROTC scholarship? I am currently a junior in high school and I have a 3.9 unweighted GPA, a 31 on my ACT and a 9 out of 12 on the writing portion. I take many AP and honors classes. I am in NHS and I am an Eagle Scout. I have also played on the JV hockey team for three years and have been the captain of the JV hockey team for two years. i have been on the JV lacrosse team for two years and track for one year. I am in Model UN. I am very athletic and plan on doing very well on my physical fitness classes. The thing is that I plan on majoring in either History or International Relations, which are both Tier 3 majors and therefore not preferred by the Navy. Do you think I have good odds of getting the scholarship despite my major choice?
What are my odds of being awarded an NROTC scholarship?
- Thread starter ATucci
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Pima, can you please explain what you mean here?
Is it possible that a qualified candidate would NOT receive an NROTC scholarship because of his/her school choice?
Are there some colleges that it is easier to get an NROTC scholarship at?
I appreciate your help in answering these probably "old" and "asked before" questions!
DeskJockey
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As you already know from reading the NROTC website, only 15% of scholarships will be awarded to Tier 3 candidates - which probably translates to something less than 300 offers. Your academic and extracutrricular record places you squarely in the running, which is just about all that can be said for any but a few candidates who have off-the-charts stats.
As Pima noted, your school choices will also play a significant role in the process - but not in ways that you can necessarily predict or control. At this point, I think that you should simply accept the fact that scholarship selection is highly-competitive and somewhat subjective. Even if someone could assure you that your chances are good, no one is going to honestly tell you that it is a sure thing. It would not hurt to look at other alternatives - Army and AF ROTC scholarships, and the service academies - as a possible Plan B.
Finally, I think that you ought to at least consider the possibility of selecting a Tier 1 or 2 major. Based on your grades and test scores, you have the aptitude to successfully complete a technical major. While that may not be nearly as appealing to you as History or IR, it would significantly increase your odds of getting a scholarship.
Life is about trade-offs, and in the case of NROTC scholarships, that usually means giving the Navy what it wants (a technical degree) in exchange for what you want (a free education and a commission). If you have a strong interest in International Relations, there are few just-out-of-college jobs where you will have the opportunity to be as engaged in the practical exercise of diplomacy as the typical junior naval officer is; it may be to your long term advantage to make some concessions on your choice of major in order to open this particular door.
As Pima noted, your school choices will also play a significant role in the process - but not in ways that you can necessarily predict or control. At this point, I think that you should simply accept the fact that scholarship selection is highly-competitive and somewhat subjective. Even if someone could assure you that your chances are good, no one is going to honestly tell you that it is a sure thing. It would not hurt to look at other alternatives - Army and AF ROTC scholarships, and the service academies - as a possible Plan B.
Finally, I think that you ought to at least consider the possibility of selecting a Tier 1 or 2 major. Based on your grades and test scores, you have the aptitude to successfully complete a technical major. While that may not be nearly as appealing to you as History or IR, it would significantly increase your odds of getting a scholarship.
Life is about trade-offs, and in the case of NROTC scholarships, that usually means giving the Navy what it wants (a technical degree) in exchange for what you want (a free education and a commission). If you have a strong interest in International Relations, there are few just-out-of-college jobs where you will have the opportunity to be as engaged in the practical exercise of diplomacy as the typical junior naval officer is; it may be to your long term advantage to make some concessions on your choice of major in order to open this particular door.
Pima
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andzgirl said:
In short, yes. They have X amount of scholarships awarded to each unit.
The scholarship is tied to the recipient, major, and the school. NROTC is not like AFROTC. AFROTC could not care if 100% at one college were on scholarship, while another had 0%.
NROTC likes to spread the wealth.
Candidates that do only all reaches at competitive ROTC units can find out they gain admittance to every college, but no scholarship because NROTC offered scholarships to the match candidate.
Last edited:
USMCGrunt
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Folks, as I understand it (as as outlined below) the scholarship selection board and the school placement board are two different entities. Maybe this is what Pima and DeskJockey meant but I want to try to make it clear for others. Pima is correct, the scholarship is awarded to a specific school. This is where school choice becomes important. You have to get accepted into the school that the scholarship is awarded to or try to transfer (not a guarantee). Some universities are more popular than others and fill up quickly - this is the other reason that school choice can be important.
This document from NCSU explains things clearly: http://naval.dasa.ncsu.edu/sites/na...sitors/Scholarship application info-2013F.pdf
an excerpt:
"Scholarship selection boards for the Navy meet about a dozen or more times (depending on the total number of applications) throughout the year with the first board usually convening in late August/early September. Marine Corps scholarship selection boards are held in November and February. Each board will review approximately 500 applications and they are reviewed in the order in which they are received. For this reason, you want to make every effort to have all of your application complete by early August so that you will be reviewed as early as possible. By August, there are usually 2,000 to 3,000 applications completed so if you’re just finishing in the September timeframe, you may not be reviewed until several months later. The selection board “scores” all of the applications it reviews based on everything contained in the application and then selects the top hundred or so highest scoring applications. Those not selected are automatically rolled to the next board which would meet about a month later and select another hundred or so applications. In this manner, about 1,800 to 1,900 students will ultimately be selected over the course of the year (the last board meets in April) out of the roughly 8,000 to 10,000 that apply. This represents around a 20 percent acceptance rate, though it varies by year. Again, this is why you want to take the time to make your application as strong as possible.
Once a board has chosen the hundred or so students it will select, those applications are then sent to a placement department which determines what college/university NROTC unit each scholarship will be assigned to. Obviously, every effort is made to place a student where he/she wants to go, but other factors do come into play. For example, each particular unit (there are roughly 70 total) has a certain “quota” or max number of students that they can accept in a given year. NC State’s quota is usually 30. For us, this means that once 30 students have been placed in our unit and have accepted the scholarship offer, no additional students will be added here. If a 31st student was selected and their application went to placement, they may then be assigned to their number two, three, or four choice of school (again, depending on availability at that school). There are a few “morals” to this story. First, it is very important that you actually apply to all of the five schools that you list on your scholarship application because it is possible that you may not be assigned to your first choice. Second, you want to have your application completed early (before the August board) so that you maximize your odds of being assigned to your first choice (because certain schools, like NC State, tend to fill up fast). Other things that affect placement include whether a certain school would be in-state or out-of-state for a particular student. As you might expect, this doesn’t apply to private schools like Duke, MIT, etc. where there is no difference in tuition and most students come from out-of-state. It does, however, apply to state schools like NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, etc. For these type of schools, the Navy requires that a minimum of 50 percent of students placed there come from within that particular state. It is for this reason that you will be required to place at least one state school on your list of five.
One final comment about placement. When you indicate your school preferences, you must be realistic about your chances of admission! Remember, the university application process is completely separate from the scholarship process and there is NO guarantee of admission to a particular school just because your scholarship gets assigned there. You should indicate school preferences on your application that feature academic programs of interest to you and that you would be competitive to be admitted to. It happens every year that a few unfortunate students find their scholarships placed at elite schools like Duke, MIT, etc. but are subsequently not admitted to those schools. Avoid having this happen to you by checking into schools’ admissions criteria in advance. Also, give due consideration to indicating one or two schools within your state. (For funding reasons, state schools often are required to take a certain large percentage of their students from within their state so you automatically stand to be more competitive if you are from that state.)"
This document from NCSU explains things clearly: http://naval.dasa.ncsu.edu/sites/na...sitors/Scholarship application info-2013F.pdf
an excerpt:
"Scholarship selection boards for the Navy meet about a dozen or more times (depending on the total number of applications) throughout the year with the first board usually convening in late August/early September. Marine Corps scholarship selection boards are held in November and February. Each board will review approximately 500 applications and they are reviewed in the order in which they are received. For this reason, you want to make every effort to have all of your application complete by early August so that you will be reviewed as early as possible. By August, there are usually 2,000 to 3,000 applications completed so if you’re just finishing in the September timeframe, you may not be reviewed until several months later. The selection board “scores” all of the applications it reviews based on everything contained in the application and then selects the top hundred or so highest scoring applications. Those not selected are automatically rolled to the next board which would meet about a month later and select another hundred or so applications. In this manner, about 1,800 to 1,900 students will ultimately be selected over the course of the year (the last board meets in April) out of the roughly 8,000 to 10,000 that apply. This represents around a 20 percent acceptance rate, though it varies by year. Again, this is why you want to take the time to make your application as strong as possible.
Once a board has chosen the hundred or so students it will select, those applications are then sent to a placement department which determines what college/university NROTC unit each scholarship will be assigned to. Obviously, every effort is made to place a student where he/she wants to go, but other factors do come into play. For example, each particular unit (there are roughly 70 total) has a certain “quota” or max number of students that they can accept in a given year. NC State’s quota is usually 30. For us, this means that once 30 students have been placed in our unit and have accepted the scholarship offer, no additional students will be added here. If a 31st student was selected and their application went to placement, they may then be assigned to their number two, three, or four choice of school (again, depending on availability at that school). There are a few “morals” to this story. First, it is very important that you actually apply to all of the five schools that you list on your scholarship application because it is possible that you may not be assigned to your first choice. Second, you want to have your application completed early (before the August board) so that you maximize your odds of being assigned to your first choice (because certain schools, like NC State, tend to fill up fast). Other things that affect placement include whether a certain school would be in-state or out-of-state for a particular student. As you might expect, this doesn’t apply to private schools like Duke, MIT, etc. where there is no difference in tuition and most students come from out-of-state. It does, however, apply to state schools like NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, etc. For these type of schools, the Navy requires that a minimum of 50 percent of students placed there come from within that particular state. It is for this reason that you will be required to place at least one state school on your list of five.
One final comment about placement. When you indicate your school preferences, you must be realistic about your chances of admission! Remember, the university application process is completely separate from the scholarship process and there is NO guarantee of admission to a particular school just because your scholarship gets assigned there. You should indicate school preferences on your application that feature academic programs of interest to you and that you would be competitive to be admitted to. It happens every year that a few unfortunate students find their scholarships placed at elite schools like Duke, MIT, etc. but are subsequently not admitted to those schools. Avoid having this happen to you by checking into schools’ admissions criteria in advance. Also, give due consideration to indicating one or two schools within your state. (For funding reasons, state schools often are required to take a certain large percentage of their students from within their state so you automatically stand to be more competitive if you are from that state.)"