OML GPA: Cumulative or Just Spring?

freegal33

5-Year Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2014
Messages
2
Hello, Everyone

I've read everywhere that GPA plays a huge part on getting AD. I'm a prior enlisted soldier and finished my 3 year contract on active duty this past summer. After getting off active duty I enrolled into college and came in as a MS3. I'm currently getting ready for LDAC this summer. All my credits transferred over to the new college but no gpa( which is fine with me cause it was very low). With a fresh start in school I finished my fall semester with a 3.9. Which is being used as my overall GPA. Unless I completely blow school off, I expect to finish this spring semester around the same. My question to anyone is OML GPA based off cumulative GPA? Or just your spring semester leading into LDAC? Or both? I've heard many different things. Any clarification would be great.

Thank you
 
Hello, Everyone

I've read everywhere that GPA plays a huge part on getting AD. I'm a prior enlisted soldier and finished my 3 year contract on active duty this past summer. After getting off active duty I enrolled into college and came in as a MS3. I'm currently getting ready for LDAC this summer. All my credits transferred over to the new college but no gpa( which is fine with me cause it was very low). With a fresh start in school I finished my fall semester with a 3.9. Which is being used as my overall GPA. Unless I completely blow school off, I expect to finish this spring semester around the same. My question to anyone is OML GPA based off cumulative GPA? Or just your spring semester leading into LDAC? Or both? I've heard many different things. Any clarification would be great.

Thank you

Cumulative
 
Hello, Everyone

I've read everywhere that GPA plays a huge part on getting AD. I'm a prior enlisted soldier and finished my 3 year contract on active duty this past summer. After getting off active duty I enrolled into college and came in as a MS3. I'm currently getting ready for LDAC this summer. All my credits transferred over to the new college but no gpa( which is fine with me cause it was very low). With a fresh start in school I finished my fall semester with a 3.9. Which is being used as my overall GPA. Unless I completely blow school off, I expect to finish this spring semester around the same. My question to anyone is OML GPA based off cumulative GPA? Or just your spring semester leading into LDAC? Or both? I've heard many different things. Any clarification would be great.

Thank you

Have you spoken with your cadre about it? The GPA used for accessions is cumulative and includes GPA at all colleges attended. Your institutional GPA at the school you are at now might be 3.9, but this should not be what your ROTC BN is using for accessions. If they are, they are wrong and the system is being gamed to your advantage.

I was in your shoes two years ago. I walked on from active duty with a GPA in the mid-2's from my first attempt at college, many moons ago. I had to absolutely bust my ass to finish with a 3.3. I pulled a mid-3.9 the whole way through. I even took extra distance classes from a different college to transfer in. My credit load was insane, but it was worth it. I didn't finish the highest on the OML, but it was high enough for an active duty slot. Don't consider yourself exceptional because you're prior service. Put in the work, put integrity first, and don't cheat the guy next to you.

Edit: if I was in your shoes and dead set on active duty, I would sit down and talk with my cadre about delaying LDAC until next summer. This would make you an end of camp commissionee. From how it was explained to me, all grades count for the OML up to end of the semester before you attend LDAC. So if you went this year, your senior year would not count. If you went next year, you get two more semesters to boost your GPA. That could be the difference between active duty and the Reserves. Plus, you go off the previous cycle's accessions OML as an end of camp commissionee. So You're being assessed the exact same way as if you had gone to camp with your peers.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for the advice I was hoping not to sound cocky (Don't consider yourself exceptional because you're prior service.) I would never take my past service and put myself on a pedestal.
That being said what I found on many different college ROTC websites as well as CCPAM 145-4: (b) Once the GPA has been established, the institutions procedure for computing the GPA applies to all further actions involving the student in ROTC activities, LTC, scholarship actions, waivers, and commissioning.
From my understanding of that CCPAM and within my own cadet command schools that don't accept GPA's but credits. Only GPA's off the transcripts where the Cadet is currently enrolled in ROTC are used for OML. It can hurt or help a cadet. For me it help, my low gpa is wipe cleaned and now based off my actions from the fall and the spring. I could also see how it could hurt a Cadet from a junior college who used to have a high gpa which doesn't count anymore. I'm open for debate and if anyone else has any experience in this situation please feel free to add your experience. As of right now my GPA on my OML is saying 3.9 and being told that what ever my spring gpa and fall equal up to be is what going to be used.
 
It's cumulative... to include ALL grades of ALL previous college courses. (At least it certainly was when I went through the process).
 
Not exactly!

Each school is different so the people who gave you definite answers regarding this subject might have given you bad intel.

I had a 3.9 cumulative for my first two years of college at a different school then transferred to a ROTC institution came in as an MS3 due to my prior service also.

My Semester GPA was 3.44 fall and 3.62 for spring as a junior before LDAC so I got assessed in FY 2014 with a 3.53 and not a 3.8ish which I would have been assessed with if they did use all of my prior credits history.

Your situation sounds more similar to mine because I was told that my GPA got reset because that is how my school does things, so I would only be assessed with the GPA at that institution (Lucky for You)
 
No, it does not differ from school to school. At least not now. At LDAC this summer, the accessions staff came and gave us a briefing. We were told in no uncertain terms that the GPA that should be used is cumulative, all schools attended, all coursework completed. We were told if our GPA was not calculated this way, it was wrong and needed to be fixed. No gray area.

Your peers are being assessed based on their total undergraduate performance. You're using one year of good grades and ignoring two years of bad ones. All it takes is a phone call to Brigade/the accessions staff to find out what the right answer is. This is a gut check for you.

Edit: Chambro, you got hosed. Did they not talk about this during the accessiins brief in your regiment? The bottom line is that it's an automated system and the data is only as accurate as what's being put in.
 
Last edited:
I was in the accessions briefing too and I know for a fact that they will not accept all of your coursework! In fact two of our engineering students went to LDAC after their MS4 year got crushed because of accessions since they stated that they will take the GPA of their first 6 semesters only. That put both people who had a 2.8 GPA at a 2.73 and a 2.69 missing the 2.75 requirement for AD engineering program. And I know one of them went up as high as brigade to have himself assessed at where he should have been.

I asked my ROO, PMS, HRA and they all told me the same thing, it was because that is how my institution does things (not my ROTC). And when I asked the accessions czar after his brief about my GPA at LDAC he said it is based upon your institution.

About "being hosed" yea I agree, I was put in a weird position of my school not letting me register until the day before classes since I was a transfer and therefore, taking the teachers that nobody wanted to take. And I worked really hard for my GPA at my other school only for it not to matter, but in the end it worked out for me I got what I wanted.

MBITR don't confuse me as trying to strong arm you, it's just I did my research and asked everyone work asking just like the OP is and I missed out on 3 accessions point.
 
Well then, I'm very confused. A prior service Cadet I went to LDAC with had his GPA changed to reflect all of his attended institutions as a result of that brief. The accessions team briefer (I can't remember it is name for the life of me. I want to say he was a retired armor 1SG) was very direct in telling us if our school was doing it the way you described, they were wrong. I've read the CC pam and know it says it's based on the institution. He was very forceful about pointing out that was wrong. So either the accessions team representative was wrong about what should be a basic facet of his job or there is break down in the guidance being given from them to the brigades.
 
Cumulative GPA

I remember several threads on this topic as cadets returned from LDAC last summer, and had DS inquire during both Fall and Spring consults.
He now has been told twice that his transfer credit GPA will NOT count for internal OML (which I understand) nor Accessions. In his case, the extra .125 would be huge when considering the AD cutoff.
It will be interesting to see what it said to the cadets at LDAC 2014, but he isn't getting his hopes up...
 
Last edited:
No, it does not differ from school to school. At least not now. At LDAC this summer, the accessions staff came and gave us a briefing. We were told in no uncertain terms that the GPA that should be used is cumulative, all schools attended, all coursework completed. We were told if our GPA was not calculated this way, it was wrong and needed to be fixed. No gray area.

Your peers are being assessed based on their total undergraduate performance. You're using one year of good grades and ignoring two years of bad ones. All it takes is a phone call to Brigade/the accessions staff to find out what the right answer is. This is a gut check for you.

Edit: Chambro, you got hosed. Did they not talk about this during the accessiins brief in your regiment? The bottom line is that it's an automated system and the data is only as accurate as what's being put in.

As the parents of two AROTC cadets who are both currently enrolled at different universities, I can say without hesitation that it **appears** that pretty much everything varies from school to school.
 
I'm just saying, the guy went as far as to put a .gif of a horse's head with the phrase "Straight from the horse's mouth" on his PowerPoint. And then pointed to and repeated the phrase during the brief.
 
I'm just saying, the guy went as far as to put a .gif of a horse's head with the phrase "Straight from the horse's mouth" on his PowerPoint. And then pointed to and repeated the phrase during the brief.
He may have been expressing the policy of Cadet Command, but if that policy is not consistently applied and enforced at the Brigade or Battalion level, what does it matter what CC's policy is? And the unfortunate thing about inconsistent application of CC Policy is that some will benefit who shouldn't, and some will lose who shouldn't.

P.S. It sounds like the policy being more commonly applied at Brigade level is still the one where prior college GPA is not used if the new college doesn't import those grades into the computation of the student's GPA at the new college. Think about it… in order for the prior college's grades to count, somebody outside the new college's registration office would have to manually compute GPA for all college courses…. distance learning, community college, another 4 year college. That same person would have to decide which courses were acceptable for college credit, and which weren't, and then compute combined GPA for all courses that weren't thrown out. And do you keep both grades for courses that were repeated, or just the replacement course's grade? Do you keep grades for remedial courses?

YOu see if you decide to go to manual CGPA calculation outside of the current college's policies, it creates a lot of work and ambiguity. I assume that's why the prior, or possibly still current, policy is to use Cumulative GPA as calculated by the Registrar's Office of the college the Battalion is attached to.

To me it look like CC is trying to address a possible problem with CGPA for transfer students without having thought it through.

If I had a stellar GPA transferring into my current Battalion/College, I would make sure to ask my PMS to communicate with CC for clarification prior to CGPA computation.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top