@KP1990 Great post. Just to clarify on attrition for all who may read, 21/22 days of NSI is of course shorter than Plebe summer. Reportedly there were a number of candidates at NSI-1 who experienced a mechanical injury / flu/ illness/ dehydration/ or migraines and went to the hospital to be checked out- some returned to the program and others ultimately were sent home. At Plebe summer they might have been restricted for 48 hours for a sprain to calm down and then continue - no luxury of time for that at NSI. For these students sent home for illness/ injury - for most, their path/ dream continues with NROTC- they just lost the benefit of that training, did not yet qualify on PT, did not graduate with their NSI class.
Additionally, there were a handful of students who unfortunately had disqualifying medical issues surface that had not been previously diagnosed and they will not continue with the NROTC program. For these young adults. It was their choice to serve, not their choice to drop. I am most empathetic for these young people and hope they find a path to overcome this setback, address issues where possible, and serve in their own way.
And there were students who came in thinking they wanted this, and concluded that they did not. Some DOR'd, some made it to graduation but are very publicly doubting they will continue. One young person stated "I graduated NSI but no thanks/ not gonna move forward" and are calling recruiters/ schools to discuss alt. options. I think the number who did this is more like something like 5%- but that's just a soft guess based on the number of students with the other reasons for leaving.
For those of us with sports backgrounds (for me many moons/ many pounds ago) there often were gung-ho people who showed up at the start of a sport season who IMO sometimes looked the part - often maybe in elite shape shape, were all enthusiastic and often loud - but after getting pinned/ tackled/ bopped in the head a few times, or after 3 hours of practice in the heat, or running a few miles on the pitch/ field, a lot of those folks did not have the resolve and quit. I think it's in-part the same here. The hypothetical and actual sometimes are too far apart on commitment, interest to really do this. What these young people are going through is a great challenge.
Again nice post and hopefully folks may find these details useful.
- "If the numbers for NSI Session 1 are correct, they started with 450 students and graduated 396. That's 12% attrition."