I'm going to try to summarize the points made in favor of WP vs. ROTC or OCS that I recall from this thread:
- 1. consistent military environment
- 2. guaranteed Active Duty
- 3. more consistent quality of officer b/c of more consistent Appointee
- 4. better summer training opportunities (Airborne, etc.)
- 5. Ring Knocker network
- 6. close bonds formed with dozens, perhaps 100+ alums
- 7. prized by civilian employers post-Army career
- one that I will add: 8. the Professorial interaction is superb.
Response from ROTC from an elite college (let's just say top 100)
- 1. consistent challenge to integrate military and civilian culture, which ability becomes critical in the new Army where solving civilian problems (e.g. in Iraq) is part of the Mission (more on this in the penultimate paragraph below)
- 2. while only 15% were "forced" reserve or Guard in 2011, the number is expected to rise. Still, if a cadet can't make top 70% to avoid forced reserves/guard, perhaps the desire to serve has been exposed more than the S-A-L qualities, or the fit just isn't there and it is better for the cadet not to be put, despite their dreams and desires, into an ill fitted environment. Nothing to fear here for the motivated, well fitted future officer.
- 3. I don't know if you can say the quality of officer is better via USMA than via ROTC at a top ranked college, so moot point
- 4. point given
- 5. point given except to reiterate many posters noting that some Universities and Colleges have very strong alumni networks as well (VMI, A&M, Ivy, Stanford, MIT, Notre Dame, and a few more)
- 6. point given.
- 7. this is a tossup. Civilian employers would view a degree from top 10 universities as more desirable/impressive than WP, from the next tier, say Notre Dame, or Cornell, pretty much any other top 25 university with equal esteem as one from WP, and WP would be favored by post Army career employers for the balance of the top 100.
- 8. as to faculty interaction, the smaller schools offering ROTC such as Villanova, Fordham, Boston College, Notre Dame, all the Ivies, etc. will have as good an opportunity for a small classroom experience and collaboration with Professors in research -- actually much higher level of research at the
smaller "research Universities" like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. However, for the majority of ROTC host Battalions at top 100 ranked colleges/Universities, USMA will offer a more proactive faculty involvement with the student.
And in the favor of ROTC:
1. Cultural Interaction: The ability to successfully navigate among non pro-military members of society, a large % of whom, at least on the college campus, think the entire military culture is neanderthalic and infantile, and at the service of Big Oil and Big Business. Once a cadet has navigated these conversations, looks, quizzical stares while wearing the uniform on campus, he/she is better prepared than the more militarily focused and insulated WP officer to interact, understand, negotiate within, and successfully achieve objectives where the military mission set intersects with civilian authority. In this narrow aspect, ROTC at top colleges isn't simply an overflow alternate channel of officer development, but a superior one.
2. Breadth of Academic Offerings: The freedom of schedule to pursue academic interests outside the mainstream. For example, a major in Linguistics is not offered at any of the Academies, but that was my area of study at Stanford and UCLA. Had I been interested in a career as an officer back in my time, ROTC at either school would have allowed me to pursue that degree, whereas no Academy would have. There are dozens of such majors, some of great value to the Military, that would be better pursued at a research University rather than at an Academy.
The one thing that's worried me about West Point is the lack of time for additional studying and learning outside of the core material/cadet duties. For example, I'd very much like to learn Farsi, or Dari, or Urdu, or a language of that nature in addition to Arabic. Would I have time to even attempt this at West Point?
OP's original post touched on point 2 directly above. However, since OP has not told us which University/College is his/her alternative to WP, it's hard to know how to comment other than the general points above.
The reason I want to go is that I've always felt that the Academy will prepare me to be a stronger officer and a better leader than ROTC would...
The balance of the eight points should give good food for thought to OP. My position is that this will be true for the ROTC experience at most Battalions, not true but a tossup as some ROTC Battalions, and possibly not true at all for a few ROTC Battalions. Unlike BigNick, who I believe is a Plebe at USMA this year, and as such would not be expected to have any basis of comparison, I don't think this is CLEAR at all.