Commissioning From SMC Guarenteed?

This was the other major question I had.

Is it true that all successful graduates of an ROTC program from a SMC are guaranteed a military commission if they choose to serve? Or is that a selective process that you have to compete for?
What throws me off is seeing that only 30% of graduates from several SMC's commission into the military.

U.S.A.1775 said:

This was the other major question I had.

Is it true that all successful graduates of an ROTC program from a SMC are guaranteed a military commission if they choose to serve? Or is that a selective process that you have to compete for?
What throws me off is seeing that only 30% of graduates from several SMC's commission into the military.

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The answer for Army is right here.
https://m.goarmy.com/rotc/courses-and-colleges/military-colleges.m.html

Similar research via google, or researching the individual SMC service ROTC websites, will get you current info from a primary source.

For example, I googled “Norwich University NROTC.” It looks like this unit operates similar to other college NROTC.

http://www.norwich.edu/rotc/naval

U.S.A.1775 said:

This was the other major question I had.

Is it true that all successful graduates of an ROTC program from a SMC are guaranteed a military commission if they choose to serve? Or is that a selective process that you have to compete for?
What throws me off is seeing that only 30% of graduates from several SMC's commission into the military.

Click to expand...

Recently graduated and commisioned from Norwich so I can shed a little light onto your question.

Not all graduates are guaranteed a commision. The process here works almost like regular ROTC at civilian schools, the only catch here is the preparation you get and leg up on competing for a contract/scholarship and a bigger pool of contracts/scholarships. SMC's = More allotments of contracts/scholarships so you are given more but are competing against a larger number of students as well. When it comes to guaranteed the only thing that is is in Army ROTC where if you perform to standard you are reccomended for Active Duty by your PMS (Essentially guaranteed AD).

As to 30% of each class commisioning, that is made up of cadets who successfully obtained a contract/scholarship and were not DQ'd for academic, medical, etc. The rest of the class goes on to pursue law enforcement, civilian jobs, etc. There are actually a decent amount of cadets who come to given SMC's not to commision but for the structure/discipline and pursue other careers.

In recent years VMI has raise the percentage of those commissioning after graduation to approximately 50%.

-Here is an older thread addressing commissioning: https://www.serviceacademyforums.com/index.php?threads/vmi-comissioning-2018.62559/

At the SMCs it is by choice whether to pursue a commission or not.

-Here is a link to the statute: https://corpuslegalis.com/us/code/title10/support-for-senior-military-colleges

The excerpt reads:

"(e) Assignment to Active Duty.—(1) The Secretary of the Army shall ensure that a graduate of a senior military college who desires to serve as a commissioned officer on active duty upon graduation from the college, who is medically and physically qualified for active duty, and who is recommended for such duty by the professor of military science at the college, shall be assigned to active duty."