AFROTC Advice

Hello everyone.

I was a self prep at MMI this year for USAFA and was not selected for admissions. I completed my first year of AFROTC at the same time and plan on continuing in the program. I just decided on my major at my transfer school as biology and have also heard about all the budget cuts going on from scholarships to field training slots.

I just wanted to know... does anyone have any clue about how this will impact those going into their sophomore year? I know the components of the application are commanders ranking, PT, SAT/ACT and GPA.

I've been told by upperclassman that as long as you're doing well, you'll be slotted for field training but it seems things may be changing a lot.

Also, does being a non-technical major such as biology hurt getting slotted for field training?

Any information is appreciated.

usafmk95 said:

Hello everyone.

I was a self prep at MMI this year for USAFA and was not selected for admissions. I completed my first year of AFROTC at the same time and plan on continuing in the program. I just decided on my major at my transfer school as biology and have also heard about all the budget cuts going on from scholarships to field training slots.

I just wanted to know... does anyone have any clue about how this will impact those going into their sophomore year? I know the components of the application are commanders ranking, PT, SAT/ACT and GPA.

I've been told by upperclassman that as long as you're doing well, you'll be slotted for field training but it seems things may be changing a lot.

Also, does being a non-technical major such as biology hurt getting slotted for field training?

Any information is appreciated.

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LOL - Right about now finding somebody who knows ANYTHING about what is up with SFT is like looking for a needle in a haystack!!

Seriously....It's April 11...way past when EA's are normally announced. A year from when last years EA's were announced....AND NOBODIES HEARD ANYTHING!

I'm sure that once EA's are announced for this year it will be easier to give you more accurate information. Right now to say anything would be at best an educated guess....

^^^^ I expect anything after EAs come out would be about the same.

From what I understand there are several EA boards. The first one is technical majors, then law/nursing/language majors, then other/nontech majors. If all the tech majors grab all the EAs then the nontechs will be left with nothing. This year they added another category for people planning on having a rated career like pilot or ABM.

kinnem said:

^^^^ I expect anything after EAs come out would be about the same.

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Sadly true.

usafmk95 said:

Also, does being a non-technical major such as biology hurt getting slotted for field training?

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During the last 5 years or so tech majors have been a priority for the AF. I believe that more are selected for FT and at a higher percentage. That said....you need to major in what ever career you want to eventually be employed. Keep your GPA up and do your best within your Detachment and what ever will be......will be.

Good luck!

Non-Tech

Coming from a non-official source, mostly what our FTP cadets have passed on up to our POC, so perhaps not super reliable, I last heard that this year's EAs had a 17% nation wide Non-Tech selection rate; average ACT close to 30, GPA above 3.75, and PFA score average of about 95.
Again, how accurate, who knows. And also, it changes year to year. I am a senior and we had a 95% rate overall.
Next year may be different.

Illini190 said:

Coming from a non-official source, mostly what our FTP cadets have passed on up to our POC, so perhaps not super reliable, I last heard that this year's EAs had a 17% nation wide Non-Tech selection rate; average ACT close to 30, GPA above 3.75, and PFA score average of about 95.
Again, how accurate, who knows. And also, it changes year to year. I am a senior and we had a 95% rate overall.
Next year may be different.

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Ok, before the wrong idea is given by this, here are the official stats for this year:

2,650 cadets nominated
1,590 selected
1,060 non-selected

Overall Select Rate: 60%
Tech Select: 65.5%
Rated Selects: 60.4%
Non-Tech/non-rated select: 17%
Nurse Select Rate: 43%

Select Averages:
CGPA: 3.38
SAT/ACT: 1287/27
PFT: 96.8

Someone somewhere wrote down what their cadre told them when they released EAs, these stats are exactly what my cadre told us and has been confirmed by multiple sources on here and on facebook.

There are other stats that break down what the average gpa, SAT, PFT were for tech vs non-tech vs rated, but the cadre only gave us the overalls. I don't know what the stats were for non-tech/non-rated, it may have been around a 3.7 like your FTP said, but I wouldn't trust that until verified by more reliable sources. HOWEVER, I do know that the selection rate for Non-tech/rated was 55% and their averaged gpa was definitely lower than the average gpa for non-tech/non-rated. We had 1 non-tech/non-rated cadet make it, but they had a 4.0 for biology...at the same time, we didn't have any other non-tech/non-rated cadets competing whose gpas were above a 3.4 so that's not necessarily a good indicator of what the actual average stats for them were. Someone could ask their cadre the specifics, but now is a really bad time to do that. Maybe the beginning of next semester might be more appropriate.

For non-tech/non-rated would you say the rate was so low because they are not taking as many of those cadets or because less are in ROTC? I am a biology major so that is a bit concerning to me.

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, we have an slightly more tech folks than non-tech. This is because UIUC is well known for its tech programs, notably engineering. For us at least, there are a lot of non-tech in our det. This year, we lost quite a few cadets who were non-tech. I would doubt that it is due to less non-tech in AFROTC, rather, a lot were cut due to AFSC needs being more heavily tech and nursing in the coming years.

The 17% is not 17% attending, but 17% of all non-tech/non-rated selected.

Here is a way to see for yourself from an AF perspective why the rate was so low for non-techs/non-rated.

What is your intended career field as a Bio major?
Are you going Bio as a path for pre-med? If so, the AF to get the best bang for their buck out of you would need to not only wait many more years for you to be ADAF AND probably have to spend hundred of thousands of dollars before you are contributing to the AF.

If it is not to go med, but just because that is the major interests you the most, and plan to go Intel, SF or maintenance, than the fact is you are competing against everyone with a non-tech major, and those fields are currently manned to the proper levels. Even if they become critical manning they can pull them from the rated world. You can't do the reverse without sending the non-rated for a two year long training assignment before they are operational.
~~~ Our D's just winged this past Friday along with 20 other pilots. At one time or another there was 32 students in his class. The 12 that did not wing are still in the AF, they all are either Intel or Maint.

The numbers that did not wing are not unusual, but common. There are about 1200 that go through UPT every year. That would be statistically another 400 a year that will be going non-rated career fields eventually.

Hence, if you add in these numbers on top of the AF reduction rates, you can easily see why non-tech/non-rated number was 17%.