he was like "do you know how hard it is to get a pilot slot?" and I replied "Yeah you have to be at the top of your class" and he said "try top 1%"
Does this mean top 1% of your det or top 1% of your college class haha
Actually it means the top 1% of all AFROTC cadets nation wide. I disagree with that number, I would put it at top 10%.
Caveat: Dets matter. Some dets will traditionally have higher % than others. You want UI, it might be from a traditional stance that they are on the low end %.
VT has a higher % than ERAU, but ERAU has more cadets that get UPT in numbers.
He also may have been thinking fighters, in this case he is right 1% would be correct...10% get UPT, and 10% of them get fighters...that equals 1%.
Also he said that out of like 5000 rotc cadets, only 2400 got field training slots! Dang!
This is true. Only about 50% get SFT. That decision is based on a lot of things, but the big 3 are GPA, AFOQT and AFPT.
They score everyone, and draw a line for the amount of slots available. If nationally you rank number 2401, your are SOL and will not be going.
This is where it starts to hurt for your future AF career. You return to school as a C300 in Sept., by Jan. they submit your for the flying AFSC. If you did not attend SFT and want that pilot slot, but 6 others went out 10. You are missing a big X in your resume. The flight board is not just about flying, it is about the best officers who want to fly. They will get points for their training and you won't. Commanders write recs for AFSC, why should they as an officer support someone who didn't make the list for SFT for flying over the cadet that did?
AFROTC is not much different than AF AD world. What you accomplished in the past will be put into the equation.
The thing I have seen not only on boards like this, but even with our DS's friends. They take engineering because it gives them the best chance for a scholarship, only to get there and struggle because engineering was not a match for them academically.
They live 4 yrs in constant stress and hating life because day in day out they are calculating their gpa figuring out what will happen if I get a C in this course, what do I need to get in my other classes to balance it out?
Tech majors get an edge for UPT, but if your gpa is low that edge will not help you out.
Also, fyi, AFROTC cadets who want to fly should take some ppl lessons because those hours are taken into account when you take the TBCM (I think that is the name) as a C300. You bring in the pilot log and they verify your hours. As an example, if you are a govt major like our DS, the playing field was just leveled against the engineer for UPT because he proved to the AF he has solo'd, whereas, the engineer had no flight hours. Being an engineer does not guarantee you have the SA to handle a stick. Flight hours in a plane does.
He asked me "What are the three words in the english language that start with 'dw'?"
He was looking for your reaction time from a pilot perspective. For a hs kid that question is like a missile being locked onto the aircraft. Your reaction gave him insight to how you handle the unpredictable life of the military. Flustered and fill it with ums, ahs, let me think for a second is different than saying DW, um, dweedle dee, dwarf and does Dependent Wife count?
I bet that is his gotcha question, and I bet he has kids who say I can't think of one and kids that say I can only think of dwarf in a minute. The kid who says I can't think of any probably gave him pause because it would appear as if they gave up without trying, whereas even the kid with only 1 took time, assessed the problem and found a result.