Is it more competitive to get a 4 year scholarship (AROTC) at Texas A&M than say a regular non SMC
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Dckc88
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The scholarships for Army (3yr AD and 4 yr) are awarded nationally, the school choice is not considered at the time your scholarship is awarded. However, a popular program may potentially "run out of spots" prior to when you are awarded a scholarship. That doesn't mean that it cannot be transferred there later, but there is no guarantee. For example, my daughter received her scholarship the 3rd board. She was offered a choice of her 1st, 3rd, and 4th schools. Some people on the third board were only offered one or two schools, which would mean that the other schools already had awarded those spots to someone else.
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Not really accurate...School choice actually is taken into account when the scholarship is awarded. School choice isn’t part of the boarding process, but once the OML is set for a round of offers school choice is what is used to decide where the offers are made. Also “other schools” don’t award spots. Cadet Command makes offers.
The answer two the question is Yes...Common sense would tell us an SMC will have more students interested in one of the ROTC programs. During the national process most schools are only allowed to be filled to a certain percentage of their mission. In my case my mission is 17 Lieutenants in 4 years. Because I’m fairly lucky with the National Process I usually End up with 10-12 scholarship winners from the National Process (about 60% of my mission). Cadet Commands goal is usually 60-70% of a cohort on scholarship by senior year (all beer math here).
If you want to attend A&M, apply to A&M. You can’t control how many others apply, or how competitive they are...you can only control how competitive you are. SMCs are all going to be more competitive than most regular colleges.
TexasAggie204
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One other factor to consider (specific to Texas A&M), is the in state / out of state situation as well. I do know that specific colleges at A&M, (Engineering in this case), have in state admissions "numbers" that they must fill, then dole out the rest for OOS. This all factors in.
Texas considers contracted ROTC cadets to be military, and all military receive in-state tuition in Texas.
TexasAggie204
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...once you're admitted. You have to be admitted first and it's a tougher go if you're applying from out of state.
Fair point if you're looking at one of the bigger, more well-known schools. Fortunately, Texas has a ton of public schools.
However, I'd be shocked if someone was able to pull down an ROTC scholarship and then not make the cut into any public university. From a pure numbers standpoint, there are far fewer Texas ROTC scholarship winners than there are admitted freshmen.
It's not necessarily tougher to get into A&M if you are applying from out of state. A&M guarantees admission to in state students in the top 10% of their class. That's how affirmative action is addressed in Texas. If a student is not in the top 10%, it can be dicey, even for those from top academic high schools. DS didn't get into WP out of high school. His Plan B was A&M and the Corps as an in state resident. Although he received a 4 year ROTC scholarship, he didn't get into A&M. He ended up taking his scholarship to VT where he finished at the top of the OML his freshman year. He reapplied to and was accepted at WP, and now after 3 years there he's in the top 10% on the OML. Sometimes the path is not that clear cut. However, if at the end of the day the goal is to commission in the U.S. Army, there are plenty of good choices out there.
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While I agree with 90% of what my friend and colleague, Clarkson, says in his response, there are some nuanced differences I’d like to point out. At Penn State, we build the core of our Battalion from our high school scholarship winners and move forward. Often times, our success with that group is a strong indication of whether we’ll hit our numbers four years down the road.
When awarding scholarships out of the Boards, USACC absolutely does their best to distribute scholarship money, as best as possible. 80% of a unit’s commission mission is the key number that caps a school...at first.
Here’s the rub: for the past 5-6 years, USACC has approved well over 90% of HS scholarship transfer requests. They’ve seen better trends from selecting the best applicants and allowing them to attend their school of choice, rather than making school choice, tuition rates and ‘equitable distribution’ critical criteria. The only exceptions to this trend are nurses, where it’s still possible to transfer scholarships, but not nearly at the 90% rate.
What does that mean for applicants? Like Clarkson said, list the schools you’re considering from most to least desirable. That said, I really can’t stress this recommendation enough, though: make sure you list SEVEN PROGRAMS in your application (the maximum amount). You’re only hurting yourself if you put down less. Remember, even only one offer to your #7 program, comes with a high probability of approval, should you request a transfer (to Penn State, of course).
For context: our program has been capped the past two years at 80%, before the second board was complete. Both years have ended with us welcoming over 100% of our commission mission in scholarship winners, due to successful scholarship transfers.
I hope that helps!