DS is finishing up junior year and has decided he wants to go AROTC. On this forum I’ve seen several people recommend scheduling the interview (which he will do later this summer) at the school that is #1 on their list. In DS’s case that is CU Boulder, which is a 2 hour flight from us. I’m happy to make this happen if it is worth the effort. Thoughts on the advantages of interviewing at the school he really wants to attend? The other option is to interview at University of Oregon, which is an easy day trip by car, or university of Washington (3 hour drive). Order of schools he is looking at and distance:
1. CU Boulder (2 hour flight)
2. University of San Diego (cross town to San Diego State) (2 hour flight)
3. University of Washington (3 hour drive)
4. Texas A&M (3.5 hour flight)
5. University of Arizona (3 hour flight)
6. University of Oregon (2 hour drive)
7. Boise State (1 hour flight)
Can you tell he is trying to get away from us?
Just want to share with you my DD's experience with her AROTC app:
1) She was given a list of 5 local schools as potential interview sites. None were in the list of her 7 to which she wanted to apply the scholarship. She called 4 of the schools. All of them said they wanted her to list them in her application. I think this "requirement" is a local thing. It's certainly not a requirement from the AROTC Cadet Command level.
Apparently, the schools can't see an interviewee's stats in the system unless they are listed in the top 7 in the application.
In the end, my DD replaced her 7th choice school with the nearest university that had AROTC. She ended up interviewing at that university.
2) Advanced Camp season is underway which means PMS are most likely at Ft. Knox right now. For expectation purposes, the PMS may not be available to interview until middle of August.
My DD got lucky. For some reason, the PMS at the local university wasn't required to help out at Advanced Camp so she was able to interview in early July.
3) Two of the schools she called offered to do the PFA for her the same day of the interview. Fortunately, my DD knocked out the PFA right when she returned from SLE, so that requirement was done.
I guess what I'm saying is if your DS scores an interview in 2 weeks or 2 months and he's in no shape to do well on the PFA and the PMS offers to administer the PFA, then it would be awkward to turn down the offer.
4) At a local Service Academy meet-and-greet event in February 2018, my DD and I met the ROO at the local university at which she ultimately interviewed. She kept in touch with him over the next few months. He set up the PMS interview for her. The ROO was very helpful even though his school wasn't on my DD's list of 7. When my DD contacted him to schedule the PMS interview, he asked her to list his school in her top 7. He was trying to be helpful so my DD didn't raise a fuss about this "requirement." She just replaced the school that was 7th on her list with the ROO's school. No big deal. It got her the interview in July.
5) As you can imagine, state universities are huge and finding some buildings can be difficult. A couple days before the interview, we did a "leader's recon" of the AROTC building. This way, she wouldn't have to be looking around for it the day of the interview. We even looked for the door that she was supposed to enter. On the day of the interview, we had no problem getting to the AROTC building. I know she's the type of person if she doesn't know where something is, then she'll get stressed out if we had gotten lost or worse be late for the interview.
As an aside, she also scoped out the local MOC's office the day before her MOC interview so she knew exactly where to show up and park.
5) The recommendation about trying to get your app for the Oct board is spot on. If you can submit your best app for the Oct board, then do it! It was a huge weight off my DD's shoulders when she was notified of her selection in late Oct. At that point, ROOs started contacting her about applying for admission their school. Know this... some schools, even the "elite" ones (use whatever definition of "elite" you want to use), take into consideration the AROTC scholarship when deciding on admitting applicants or not. If you know you have an AROTC scholarship in hand by the end of Oct, most schools without rolling admission have an app deadline of 1 Jan. It's possible the admissions committee will know of your scholarship when they meet in the Jan/Feb/Mar timeframe to decide who gets admitted or not.
Good luck!!!