Although this is an older post, I thought I would add to the discussion. My son received a 4-year Army ROTC scholarship to an in-state school in which he successfully (and quite easily) transferred to Norwich University. He'd always had a preference for an Academy or an SMC. Prior to receiving his ROTC scholarship, we had visited both the Citadel and Norwich. This gives some of our experiences. Early on my son had a preconceived bias toward Citadel - probably because it seemed to have more 'branding' power amongst his peers (other than the Academies of course). Whenever he mentioned 'Citadel', friends and relatives recognized the name, whereas far fewer had even heard of Norwich. That makes a big difference for many teenagers. For whatever reason, he showed little interest in VMI. We visited Citadel first. The timing was such that we arrived for a tour during the first week of Fall classes. Unfortunately, that meant they didn't offer tours of rooms or accommodations. We'd visited other active colleges and academies prior to this, so we found that a bit unusual and disappointing. If we had known that we would have changed our scheduling. While we were there, we were introduced to his assigned admissions officer - a first-year employee that had just graduated from the Citadel. For us, our experience with him became another 'tell' about our experience. Over the next several months we made several calls and left voicemails with a variety of typical questions. He never once returned our calls - ever. One time, we called the general admissions number and asked for him through an admissions operator and finally got through to him. Following that though, we never heard from him again and he never returned a call. (very, very weird). Strangely, during our visit, we also took notice of how few minorities there were within the knob ranks. Very few! Now, I'm sure there must have been more elsewhere on campus, but I'm telling you we saw many platoons out marching, memorizing, getting yelled at etc - but we saw very few minorities and that troubled us. About a month later, someone pointed us to some videos and articles on the internet regarding recent racist incidents at the school. Coincidentally this was taking place around the time of the Charlottesville incidents in 2017, so it naturally magnified our impressions. Ultimately this became the 'kiss of death' for us regarding the Citadel. Now I KNOW there are many (MANY!) who have had fantastic experiences at Citadel, and I want to quickly add we just might have had an unusual and particularly bad experience. But, that was our experience. In the early spring of 2018, we finally went to visit Norwich. Honestly, but that point we were both just 'checking a box'. He was planning to attend Purdue Engineering if he wasn't accepted at an Academy. But, the Norwich experience surprised both of us in two key ways. First, my son loved the campus and the diversity. The ROTC commander was very impressive and he had inspired students and parents. Second, Norwich has an unbelievably generous financial aid program. (Citadel only offered us some meager FASFA loans, with no scholarships). Even prior to receiving the ROTC scholarships, Norwich had already offered enough scholarship money to cover about 1/2 their private school cost (which is currently about $60K/yr). However, after receiving the 4-year Army ROTC scholarship, they 're-tooled' his package such that he was offered 98% coverage! I was blown away. Academically, the Citadel and Norwich both had a reasonable number of majors. By contrast, VMI's were very limited. The Citadel's nursing program had just started, whereas Norwich's program has been established for many years. The Norwich Admissions officer was in frequent contact with us and made sure we had answers to all our questions. They called us far more than we called them. In the end, he was not accepted by an Academy, and Norwich had impressed him so much that it easily took the pole position amongst his other choices. Parotting some other comments on this site, I would strongly encourage interested parties to visit each campus to get their own 'feel' and make their own determination. I could not have predicted our outcome based on Internet websites and the application process alone. Visting is a powerful experience for both parents and students alike.
