AP Exam Grades on AFROTC Scholarship Application

I am curious if AP Exam grades can help with the AFROTC scholarship? In my son's case, he is interested in a Chemistry major. Since he got a 5 on the AP Exam, we are thinking it might be prudent to spell this out in his application. The problem is, we did not see an obvious place to do so. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

No, it does not assist in the selection process for the scholarship directly.

Indirectly, yes.
1. Theoretically his SAT or ACT should be higher. If he has not taken the ACT I suggest he does because there is a science portion, and again theoretically he could bump his score up for composite to a higher score than his SAT equivalent.
~ They do not mix and match tests, they have a formula and whichever test score is higher will be the score used for selection.

2. The school will submit a school profile along with the transcript. This is where they will see the AP classes and test results. In the profile they will state % of students that take APs, and the median scores on the AP.
~ Again, from an indirect perspective they will have the ability to see it.

At this point my best advice would be unless their SAT is best sitting 1350+ have them take it again if he wants that Type 1 scholarship. The board does not meet until Dec. and the one item you can update is the SAT/ACT while awaiting selection, so keep taking them. Get the application in for a queue purpose, but keep taking the exam until you feel that you have maxxed out and can't get any higher.

Thank you for the response. I do plan to have him take the ACT. He has taken the SAT twice and scored 1300 both times so I am a bit concerned about his score.

I honestly do not have a very good feel for how competitive he is for the scholarship. His unweighted GPA is about 3.75. He has all honors and AP classes but then, so do many applicants.

For the fitness test, he will max out on the run and crunches and probably will come close to maxing out in push-ups.

As far as extraciricular events, he runs cross-country and track and has lettered all 3 years of high school, so far. He does other odds and ends in terms of clubs. He also works. The problem that I see, however, is very little demonstrated leadership.

He is very interested in majoring in chemistry at UNC, which is local to where we live, so even a Type 7 would be great.

I think he is fairly well-rounded but I don't know if he is competitive for the scholarship. I guess we'll find out. Any advice or feedback is welcome. Thanks again.

Here is the true problem that nobody can answer for you...chances.
1. Nobody knows the applicant pool for this year
2. Nobody knows the AFROTC scholarship budget, thus how many scholarships will be awarded.

Posters will say his stats look better than theirs and they got a scholarship, but again look at above and remember that was then, this is now. Things change.

Does he look competitive for even a 7, my guess is yes, but with the latest news regarding AFROTC I would be remiss if I did not say I think there is a high probability of fewer scholarships and just breaking 1300 with no leadership can be an issue when it comes between a 1,2, 7 or nothing.

The upside from mpo is that his school profile will be strong. A 3.75 uw and 5s on the APs tells me that the school is academically competitive, iows their As are not given out easily. This will work to his advantage since AFROTC will and does re-weight cgpas. They do so based on school profile and scale. It could actually go up or down depending on if it is a 7 point scale or 10 point. It could go up or down depending on how they determine cgpa...I.E. Is an A- still a 4.0 or is it 3.6? Does the school take the numeric value and multiply by 4.0....a 93 could be A- in your school and worth 3.6, but if they do it by multiplying it with 4.0 credit hours it is actually a 3.72.
~ Our DSs uwcgpa jumped by .25 because his school did an A- is 3.6 and it was a 7 point spread. His wcgpa dropped because the HS used a 5.0 for AP/jump start classes and they use a 4.5 scale.

The other thing that will help or hurt him is his school ranking and how that compares to the graduation profile. Top 10% is great, but not so great if 0% go Ivy and the mid 50% go 2 year.
~ I say this all the time, every poster thinks they attend a competitive HS, but this is a national board, not a county or state. There will be candidates that attend schools on USNWR, Time, Money and Fortune top 100 HS in the nation. It is not personal, it is just the reality of ranking.

He looks well rounded, and they get that not every kid is going to be Captain or Class President by the end of their junior year.

As far as UNCCH goes, as a fellow NC parent, they superscore the SAT. 1300 super score is probably on the low match end. The 5s on APs should help. Our DS was offered admission to UNCCH without ever applying via AFROTC scholarship (long story), but his best sitting was 1390, and 1410 super. ACT was 33 or 34 can't recall. He was all APs by end of junior year and had to do jump start because he finished all AP classes (minus a select few). UNCCH is considered a public Ivy and ranks in the top 5 nationally. The competition for admittance is insane.
~ Just putting it out there that you might want to look at WWW.college confidential.com regarding a chance me for admittance.

Good luck
Aim High...Above All

OBTW, it may have changed, but years ago ROTC had a voice on the admissions board....see above long story

Thanks for all the useful information! I was hoping to respond directly to you but I was under the 5 post limit.

Not sure which part of the state you are familiar with but he attends Cardinal Gibbons in Raleigh. I do not know how much they inflate or deflate grades but they are on a 7 point scale and add/subtract .5 for pluses/minuses respectively.

In regard to UNCCH, I know he is iffy. Althought he scored 1300 each time, his superscore is 1330, which I know won't help him all that much. Hopefully, he will do better on ACTs. We were hoping that if he were to get an AFROTC scholarship that it might actually help his chances of getting in but that is just speculation on my part. He is not putting all his eggs in one basket, though. There are other schools he is considering. Again, thanks for the infomation. It gives us much to consider.

chud182 said:

Thanks for all the useful information! I was hoping to respond directly to you but I was under the 5 post limit.

Not sure which part of the state you are familiar with but he attends Cardinal Gibbons in Raleigh. I do not know how much they inflate or deflate grades but they are on a 7 point scale and add/subtract .5 for pluses/minuses respectively.

In regard to UNCCH, I know he is iffy. Althought he scored 1300 each time, his superscore is 1330, which I know won't help him all that much. Hopefully, he will do better on ACTs. We were hoping that if he were to get an AFROTC scholarship that it might actually help his chances of getting in but that is just speculation on my part. He is not putting all his eggs in one basket, though. There are other schools he is considering. Again, thanks for the infomation. It gives us much to consider.

Click to expand...

I live in Cary. Cardinal Gibbons is a great school. DS had a 1310 SAT score, somewhat less than yours, but it didn't make the cut for UNC. His GPA was lower though. He was wait listed for NC State, and eventually accepted, but he had already chosen another college by that point. Which brings me to my real reason for this post.

One college you should have on your radar is University of South Carolina. They have Chem and Chem Eng. majors which my history major son says are pretty good. They have AFROTC, AROTC, and NROTC programs. It's close enough for the occasional weekend visit or even better, you can go down and watch the Gamecocks play. It still has Carolina in the name of the school.

They also offer a scholarship (Woodrow) that requires no additional paperwork other than the college application that is available to out-of-state students. It brings costs down to near what it would cost to send him to NC State. DS's scores were good enough to win one of these and it's what enabled him to attend college there as an NROTC college programmer (without NROTC scholarship, which he finally won during his sophomore year). I mention this in case your son doesn't win a scholarship but still wants to attend a college that has a ROTC program and addresses his other interests while keeping costs down.

Good luck! Hope UNC comes through.

Thanks Kinnem! I also live in Cary (about a mile from I-40 off of North Harrison). USC is actually my son's 2nd choice. We visited the school a few months ago and he seemed to like it (just not as much as UNC). It is definitely on his short list. That's one of the great things about the AFROTC scholarships: you aren't tied to the school.

This is DS's story and it goes back 6 years now, so take it with a HUGE grain of salt. We lived in Goldsboro, DH was assigned to SJAFB, so I am not familiar with your DS's HS in Raleigh. I do know of parents that drove their kids daily into Raleigh for the magnet Math and Science HS, but can't recall that schools name.

DS never applied to UNCCH, however in Feb or Mar. we received a letter from UNCCH. I opened it thinking it was junk mail from them and it basically stated the following:
The admissions office understands you never applied, but we would like to offer admission to you at this time. Sign the dotted line, and as long as your GPA has not changed we look forward to seeing you in the fall.

Me: HUH... Re-read it again. Read again, still at Huh? Bullet read this for me, am I right, did they just offer admittance to DS?
Bullet: huh...yeah I think you are right

Called the next a.m. out of curiosity DS had already signed the matriculation papers and deposits to another ACC school using his AFROTC scholarship OOS.

They stated that the AFROTC PMS sat on the admissions board and placed him up for admissions. They had his stats because he had been awarded a scholarship and his stats were a match for an IS student.

One week later he received a congrats letter from NYU, although he never completed his application. This time he called NYU admissions and was told almost the exact same thing.
~ In essence their admissions board had ROTC professors that sat on the board. They used the scholarship awards list as a recruiting option.

Would I bank on this? Absolutely, positively not! Not only is the anecdotal that occurred years ago, but many colleges that have ROTC(A/AF/NROTC) rotate them annually. It may have been nothing more than luck that for his year AFROTC sat on the board.

Now for another reality...many AFA cadets will apply for the scholarship. They too will be his competition. Most candidates that apply for both will learn of the scholarship before the appointment. The mass mailing for AFA does not occur traditionally until after the last AFROTC scholarship board meets. AFA and AFROTC do not talk, thus the boards do not take into account if the candidate has an appointment when awarding the scholarship.

Again, I think as much as anyone can give advice he is competitive for a scholarship from a historical perspective...SAT is in the median, he is going tech and has sports under his belt. I am just feeling that as a college, NCST is more of a match.
~ I would also have him give a deep look at NCST because they are impo, more ROTC oriented, and college as a ROTC student is like the WCS approach. It is not just the 3 hour campus tour.
~~~ Do him a favor, come September have him contact both sets. Ask for a sit down with not only the CoC, but also some 300/400 cadets. Leave him alone and meet him at the student union later. Let him walk from the set to your meeting spot alone. He will get a better feel of life next yr BC he will blend in with other students.
~~~~~ Cadets will also act differently without you hanging...no dog and pony show, just kids hanging without their folks.

We did that with our DS and his number 3 became number 1.

Since you asked for advice: I would recommend refraining from saying things like "I do plan to have him take the ACT" and instead say something like "He plans to take the ACT," which doesn't raise the question of why he needs his mommy/daddy to make him do what he needs to do to get into college, as though he is not capable of making that decision or of scheduling a test. If you're ever talking to anyone who will evaluate your son (in college admissions or ROTC) do NOT use "we" or "I" to describe doing that which your son should be able to do on his own.

Platypus,

Although I agree with you, I also don't agree.

Yes their DS needs to run with the application on their own two feet, BUT SAT and ACTs cost money, and that typically comes out of the folks wallet. IMPO it is not a heloing factor when they say we plan on him taking the ACT. That is just good parenting making sure their child that is 17 exhausts every avenue to become competitive which financially they can afford as family. Not every parent can afford a child taking both the SAT and ACT every month, plus the cost of college applications...it could cost @1K + over4 months depending on how often the child takes it and how many schools they apply to for admission. For some parents 250 a month out of pocket is hefty, thus it is a WE decision, not a child's decision.

Now when they sit in on their interview with the CoC, than yep they officially entered the realm of questioning their DS's capabilities.

Pima,
I think individual opinions of what constitutes helicopter parenting have been discussed ad nauseam on this forum, so I simply meant to inform the OP that a certain wording gives a certain impression, and to be aware of it in the future. However, to respond to you:
1. The OP didn't imply a WE decision, they said "I plan to have him take the ACT," which to me does not mean a child coming to parent and asking then to pay for the test, it means parent telling child "you're taking the test." This does not means it's what actually happened, just the impression that the statement could give (to me, evidently not to you, so obviously it depends on your audience).
2. I understand your point about finances, I hadn't thought of that, but I wouldn't assume that taking the ACT means spending $250/month... And I'm still not sure how you reached that number... If I remember correctly the test is around $50, even if you took it every month and sent your best score that doesn't equal $250/month...

Read my post again...the $250 was the cost over 4 months when you add in both SAT and ACT plus if my memory serves me every college ap is around 50-75. Now add in 6-9 college APS and 6-9 college visits and you are easily at 250 a month.

I do not consider myself a help parent, but guess what? I made all of my kids take both the SAT and the ACT. They had no voice in this choice BC from my own personal experience from way back when I knew some kids did better on one test over another.
~ My kids also never took any test more than two times. DS scored higher out of the gate on the ACT, so he took the SAT twice. DD scored higher on the SAT so she took the ACT twice. DS2 had equal scores so he took both again.

You are correct the help parent issue has been discussed ad nauseum, but I don't see telling your child that is in the college process to re.take the exams as heloing. Now calling their det. or Maxwell, that is heloing.

I feel the need to point out that the cost of applying to colleges means that the decision of how many colleges to apply to can be a several hundred dollar joint decision. But the choice to take the ACT is still a $50 decision. A little more if you choose not to take advantage of the free reports to schools or apply to a lot of schools, I suppose. But again I see your point.

What do you say we keep this thread on track folks. Interesting input from all sides but no need to go 'round and 'round the mulberry bush yet again... at least not on this thread. Thanks!