College Nursing Student Interested in AROTC/Nursing Program

My daughter is finishing up her first year of college, and is a nursing major.
She'd like to explore the possibility of joining AROTC at her school to take advantage of the many opportunities and hopefully obtain a scholarship of some kind to offset her student debt (this is a private school).

She's communicated with the program director in the hopes of setting up a meeting to discuss, and a friend who is in ROTC at this school has also spoken to the director about my daughter.

We've read up on the various ROTC college scholarships (3 year, 2 year, etc). There is a Army Nurse Corps program at her school as well. I've been telling her of the great opportunities the military could provide (leadership opportunities, travel, etc); her dad is retired Navy and members from both sides of our family currently serve or did serve, so she is not completely unfamiliar with the military.

How difficult is it to obtain a 3 or 2 year? For the school year 2017-2018, has she missed the deadline? Any other tips or nuggets of info?

thank you.

I am new to the process, but from what I understand, you have to still be in high school to apply for the ROTC national scholarship program. The way to earn a scholarship once out of high school is for her to join the ROTC unit at college by registering for the Military Science class, lab, and showing up for physical training. If your daughter performs well, she may be awarded a campus-based scholarship after one or two semesters of participation, but it depends on her scores, how much money the unit has at that time for campus scholarships, and the needs of the ROTC program. Best wishes to her!

miz131 said:

My daughter is finishing up her first year of college, and is a nursing major.
She'd like to explore the possibility of joining AROTC at her school to take advantage of the many opportunities and hopefully obtain a scholarship of some kind to offset her student debt (this is a private school).

She's communicated with the program director in the hopes of setting up a meeting to discuss, and a friend who is in ROTC at this school has also spoken to the director about my daughter.

We've read up on the various ROTC college scholarships (3 year, 2 year, etc). There is a Army Nurse Corps program at her school as well. I've been telling her of the great opportunities the military could provide (leadership opportunities, travel, etc); her dad is retired Navy and members from both sides of our family currently serve or did serve, so she is not completely unfamiliar with the military.

How difficult is it to obtain a 3 or 2 year? For the school year 2017-2018, has she missed the deadline? Any other tips or nuggets of info?

thank you.

Click to expand...

You can also explore these, see if there is a fit:

https://www.navy.com/joining/college-options/ncp


I think Army has similar:
http://m.goarmy.com/amedd/nurse.m.html


HPSP for AF:

https://www.airforce.com/careers/specialty-careers/healthcare/training-and-education


Navy and Army also have HPSP, just google to check what healthcare provider specialties are currently covered.

No ROTC required for these, as I understand them.

And don't overlook USPHS - a uniformed but not armed service, uniforms/ranks similar to Navy, similar pay and benefit structure.

https://www.usphs.gov/student/

https://www.usphs.gov/student/nhsc.aspx

brob said:

I am new to the process, but from what I understand, you have to still be in high school to apply for the ROTC national scholarship program. The way to earn a scholarship once out of high school is for her to join the ROTC unit at college by registering for the Military Science class, lab, and showing up for physical training. If your daughter performs well, she may be awarded a campus-based scholarship after one or two semesters of participation, but it depends on her scores, how much money the unit has at that time for campus scholarships, and the needs of the ROTC program. Best wishes to her!

Click to expand...

Thank you for the information!

Capt MJ said:

You can also explore these, see if there is a fit:

https://www.navy.com/joining/college-options/ncp


I think Army has similar:
http://m.goarmy.com/amedd/nurse.m.html


HPSP for AF:

https://www.airforce.com/careers/specialty-careers/healthcare/training-and-education


Navy and Army also have HPSP, just google to check what healthcare provider specialties are currently covered.

No ROTC required for these, as I understand them.

And don't overlook USPHS - a uniformed but not armed service, uniforms/ranks similar to Navy, similar pay and benefit structure.

https://www.usphs.gov/student/

https://www.usphs.gov/student/nhsc.aspx

Click to expand...

Thank you for those links. Was not aware the USPHS offered this.

miz131 said:

My daughter is finishing up her first year of college, and is a nursing major.
She'd like to explore the possibility of joining AROTC at her school to take advantage of the many opportunities and hopefully obtain a scholarship of some kind to offset her student debt (this is a private school).

She's communicated with the program director in the hopes of setting up a meeting to discuss, and a friend who is in ROTC at this school has also spoken to the director about my daughter.

We've read up on the various ROTC college scholarships (3 year, 2 year, etc). There is a Army Nurse Corps program at her school as well. I've been telling her of the great opportunities the military could provide (leadership opportunities, travel, etc); her dad is retired Navy and members from both sides of our family currently serve or did serve, so she is not completely unfamiliar with the military.

How difficult is it to obtain a 3 or 2 year? For the school year 2017-2018, has she missed the deadline? Any other tips or nuggets of info?

thank you.

Click to expand...

Now that she is in college, as others have mentioned, it will be a campus based scholarship, so meeting with the programs on campus is the right call. A little insight on nursing and on campus scholarships. Each AROTC battalion has a mission, so for her, it would be a mission for officers in 2020. What is important is whether or not the school has a nursing mission, and if the nursing mission is already filled as far as scholarship is concerned. For example, my DD's school has a mission of 3 nurses for 2020. When she arrived on campus there were five freshman nurses, two were on national scholarships (my daughter and one other), one was a SMP and on scholarship (with national guard), and two did not have scholarships. By the end of the year, they gave one of them a campus based scholarship, the other one also took a scholarship for either the NG or reserves. This is important because the school said they will only support 3 by scholarship for their mission because is for active duty (not guaranteeing AD, just saying the battalion is held responsible for producing 3 active duty officers as nurses in 2020). So these are questions she can ask. That is not to say that she can not be in AROTC as a nurse, but the battalion's mission will have an impact on whether or not money is available for her, especially if she wants to actually work as a nurse.

The benefits to nursing students are great. My DD will do her school required clinical rotations like everyone else except for one rotation will be with an Army unit somewhere else during the summer, and she will shadow an Army officer who is a nurse and work along side him/her. She is finishing up her MS1 year next week, and will be an MS3 next year and will take on leadership in her battalion right away. This is to accommodate how busy nurses are as upper class students. Please keep asking questions, and again, have your daughter ask the AROTC ROO about the nursing mission. I know as a high school student my daughter researched briefly the life of a navy nurse versus army and she has wanted Army all along, but everyone has a different fit. Good luck to her and so exciting she is interested in serving.

Some great advice from Dckc88! I am just finishing up my MSIII year and am also a nursing major. I would encourage your daughter to do as Capt MJ suggested and explore the other branches as well. Ultimately military nursing is pretty streamlined across the different services with the exception that each branch has some different opportunities once you have a few years in. It's definitely not too late to get involved, feel free to ask me and questions! Best of luck!

Good morning, I am a current nursing student in AROTC as well going into my MSIII year. From my unit, I was told even if there are no nursing mission at your specific school, your unit can request a nursing mission from nursing brigade which is what mine has done for 2 other students.

Also AROTC is extremely accommodating to the workload of nursing students. For example, given that I score a 270 on my PFT I would not have to attend the mandatory PTs, if there are class conflicts between ROTC classes or lab against your nursing classes, the nursing classes would take priority, and the instructors would work out another time for you to make up those classes.