Army ROTC Personal Statement & 1 Mile Run

SunnyCal

SunnyCal

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My son is a Sophomore and will be applying June 2019.

What are the instructions for the personal statement? For example, what is the minimum & maximum word/page count?

For the mile run, are applicants running 4 times around their high school track? Because, if they do, they are almost certainly running 1600 meters, not a mile since practically every high school track in the United States has converted to a 400 meter track. Therefore, is running 4 times around a 400 meter track the accepted practice? Or - is everyone bringing a tape measure and adding 9.3 meters to their run? Every video I have seen so far shows cadets running 8 laps (college ROTC). I haven't found anyone high school run videos.

Thanks!
 
SunnyCal said:
For the mile run, are applicants running 4 times around their high school track? Because, if they do, they are almost certainly running 1600 meters, not a mile since practically every high school track in the United States has converted to a 400 meter track. Therefore, is running 4 times around a 400 meter track the accepted practice? Or - is everyone bringing a tape measure and adding 9.3 meters to their run? Every video I have seen so far shows cadets running 8 laps (college ROTC). I haven't found anyone high school run videos.
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I have not met a high school track coach that does not have a pre-measured 1-mile course identified at their school. Assuming your son is using a school coach or official to administer the physical fitness assessment, I would have him validate as he informs them of the requirements and schedules the assessment.
 
My son is on the track and cross country team. We commonly use the local university track in the off-season. We have never seen a marking for the mile. No one runs the mile in high school track meets. They race the 1600m. I only see the mile ran at highly prestigious high school invitationals, e.g., Arcadia.

FMHS-79, are you saying that your local high school has a mile marker on their track and that you have personally seen track mile marks on every high school track you have visited?
 
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I wouldn't worry to much about the mile time running on a high school track. If you run 4 laps on a 400 meter track you will be running a 0.994 mile, that would only be about a 2 second difference in time, not enough to worry about. This is running in lane 1, if he runs in lane 2 he would be running a 1.011 mile, so lane 1 would be closest to an actual mile.
 
I totally agree Jcleppe. The difference is negligible. 2 or 3 seconds. And I'm sorta surprised that the Army doesn't update Form 145-1-1 from the mile to the 1600 meter run. But, I grew up running the mile at my high school, and I'm sure the General in charge of this form and this standard also grew up decades ago running the mile at their high school.

I just wanted to get a consensus on running 4 laps for this PT test.
 
SunnyCal said:
I totally agree Jcleppe. The difference is negligible. 2 or 3 seconds. And I'm sorta surprised that the Army doesn't update Form 145-1-1 from the mile to the 1600 meter run. But, I grew up running the mile at my high school, and I'm sure the General in charge of this form and this standard also grew up decades ago running the mile at their high school.

I just wanted to get a consensus on running 4 laps for this PT test.
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It's probably more related to what length tracks are at Army bases since they'l need to run the APFT. I expect they're older tracks and based on the mile.
I agree that 9.x meters won't really make any difference.
 
Kinnem, I would be pretty surprised to find an all-weather (synthetic) track anywhere, including any military base, that was not 400 meters in distance. Any dirt (cinder) track upgraded to a mondo-type track is certainly going to be converted to a metric track. Nearly every Army ROTC program have their cadets running 3200 meters (8 laps) for their PT testing on their college/university all-weather track, which is about 61 feet short of 2 miles.

Are there many military bases that still have dirt 440 yard tracks?
 
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SunnyCal said:
Nearly every Army ROTC program have their cadets running 3200 meters (8 laps) for their PT testing on their college/university all-weather track, which is about 61 feet short of 2 miles.
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I don't think either of my sons every ran the 2 miles for the APFT on a track, even at LDAC or other summer training such as Airborne or CDQC. There was usually a 2 mile course set up somewhere on the base or at school. Neither have done the 2 miles on a track at any of their Active Duty assignments, BOLC, or units.
 
Never knew of my kid use a track in NROTC or in the Corps either. I expect there are exceptions.
 
SunnyCal said:
My son is a Sophomore and will be applying June 2019.

What are the instructions for the personal statement? For example, what is the minimum & maximum word/page count?

For the mile run, are applicants running 4 times around their high school track? Because, if they do, they are almost certainly running 1600 meters, not a mile since practically every high school track in the United States has converted to a 400 meter track. Therefore, is running 4 times around a 400 meter track the accepted practice? Or - is everyone bringing a tape measure and adding 9.3 meters to their run? Every video I have seen so far shows cadets running 8 laps (college ROTC). I haven't found anyone high school run videos.

Thanks!
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the personal statement is pretty straight forward. They give you 2 topics to write about and 1 additional remarks section. The word count is 2000 characters from what i remember. One topic was write about what you do on an average school day or school week, and the other was about why you wish to join and how you define a career obligation.
 
Our highschool has a 1 mile course thats not on the track, its measured through parking lots/roads on campus. DS's JROTC instructor uses that to train for raider meets etc and for them do physical fitness tests. Also, he has already been in contact with the rotc program he is attending next year to ask what type of track and surface the AFPT is run on and he was told it is not on a track, it is on a course through the campus.
 
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