Army ROTC 2014 Accesions & Active Duty

cfogle311

5-Year Member
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Jan 2, 2014
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6
I currently a MS3 and had a few questions in regards to the new OML and accessions for 2014. First I want to know what the major changes are. Second I want some advice on what my chances of getting active this fall.

I max the PT test, have a 3.35 GPA currently and am ranked 14/29 in the our program's MS3 class OML. I'm Getting 50/50 overall E's and S's on campus with an average of 4-6 dimensional E's. I do several EC activities and did ranger challenge (we got 2nd out of the BN :( October), and A LOT of color guards.

I wasn't concerned at the beginning of the 3 year but I have heard a lot about how the AD slots got slashed and am worried about getting forced into reserve components.

I want to know what my chances are, what the OML cutoff will look like and if there is anything additional I can do to boost my score. Our MS3 instructor has been vague about these as he is not 100% sure himself. If anyone has any insight on this I would greatly appreciate it.

If it matters at all, I want to branch FA and want to ADSO.
 
There is no magic cutoff number, it will come down to how many AD LT's they will need. At this point it is impossible to even speculate about what that number will be.

Keep your APFT score at the max, Try and get your GPA up to 3.4
 
There is no magic cutoff number, it will come down to how many AD LT's they will need. At this point it is impossible to even speculate about what that number will be.

Keep your APFT score at the max, Try and get your GPA up to 3.4

Focus on what you can do and (see above) and keep your nose clean.

You cannot control (nor even know) the AD target for your year. Additionally, last year they added the special Branch ADSOs for certain majors which played with the whole OML. Nobody knows whether they will continue as they did for your class, or whether they will add or subtract from these ADSOs. It is useless to game the system, so don't waste your energy doing it.
 
There's an older accessions thread you can read through if you use the search function that talks about this year's changes in detail. Your performance as described probably would have been good for AD if your LDAC performance was consistent with your campus performance. No one can tell you what next year will look like. Give it all you can until the end, but don't take anything as a given.
 
I'm Getting 50/50 overall E's and S's on campus with an average of 4-6 dimensional E's.

You sound like you are doing fine, keep it up.

The only thing I'd like to add because I hate that it dominates an MS3's mentality, and why I only quoted a snip of your post, is that you should completely remove the E/S/N and eval out of your head. I know this is hard, because every single person heading to LDAC gets completely consumed in getting an E and being the best at LDAC. I strongly urge you to focus on doing what needs to be done as a leader, and the eval will follow. Don't do something because you think it will make your eval look better.

I did the LDAC thing this past summer, and finished as one of 39 honor grads (13 Regimental, 26 Company) for all of camp (all 13 regiments, ~6000 cadets) and finished in the top 1%. I'm not saying this to brag because honestly it means very little to me, I'm saying it because I saw a thing or two on how to succeed at LDAC. If you completely erase from your mind the fact that you're being evaluated on your performance, and focus on 2 things I guarantee you that your overall eval will match your performance. Accomplish the mission, and take care of troops. That's it. Don't do things because SFC So-and-so is watching or CPT Whoever is taking notes, do it because it's the right thing to do and it needs to happen to accomplish the mission. Don't focus on what highlights each of the 17 leadership dimensions. Put your yellow card in your back pocket and drive on. I swear if you focus on those 2 things, your eval will reflect accordingly.

Additionally, LDAC factors in to only a small portion of accessions, focus on the big picture and you'll end up where you're aiming for. Too many cadets get caught up on things that they think will boost their eval and it ends up hurting them because they neglect the tasks at hand: Accomplishing the mission, and taking care of their troops.

Now don't take this to mean that you can just go out there and jack around because some anonymous person on the internet told you the eval doesn't matter, because it's still game time. But focus on what needs to happen.

The last thing I'll add, is that at LDAC (and ROTC as a whole) they are looking for people who think. It's not about thinking inside or outside of "the box". There is no box. Just think. They want to see a thought process behind decisions. Leaders think to solve problems, if you demonstrate a thought process you'll do well.

I don't mean to sound like I'm lecturing, because I'm still young and far from being a finished product on leadership, but I have learned a thing or two over my ROTC years, and tend to think differently than a majority of cadets I've encountered. If you have additional questions, feel free to PM me. But don't sweat LDAC at all. It's not that big of a deal. You'll be fine.
 
You're going to take a big hit for being middle of the pack on the PMS OML. Your GPA is fairly weak.

You can make up for this by continuing to max on the PT test and getting Es at LDAC. Although LDAC isn't worth what it used to be, it can have a large influence on your PMS accessions OML that he does right before packets are submitted. You might move up significantly if you do well at LDAC and pull an overall E or get honor grad.

That's pretty much what I notice from your post. Like a few others said, don't worry about AD and branching right now. Worry about getting straight As this semester in your studies. Do well in military science and on your FTX and maybe you can move up a bit on your PMS OML. Get prepared for LDAC by knowing the OPORD process and your battle drills.

Time will tell on whether you were competitive or not. If you do well at LDAC, you will probably get AD. If you don't, probably not. In terms of branching, who knows. FA isn't a very competitive branch to get comparatively, but you want to do the best you possibly can regardless - especially in these times of drawdown.
 
Umm I don't really consider a 3.35 GPA weak especially if it's a STEM major. I know many EE and Chem guys who would have sold their soul for that GPA. Even with the changes I think it would put him on par with getting AD.
 
When they do the GPA section of the OML they actually use 3 GPAs, your culmulative, your ROTC, and the last quarter/semester before you went to LDAC. So if I were you I would focus getting a 4.0 that last quarter/semester before you go. You can also make sure you have all the EC points you can get, for example joining a club sport gives you points as does a part time job and being a president of something. So if you've been thinking about joining the school's frisbee team or running from president of your faternity now would be a good time. Maybe schedule a meeting with your MS instructer and talk about how you can improve on the cadre rankings between now and the end of the year. If you end up somewhere near the cutoff those little points could go a long way.

That being said don't kill yourself trying to game to OML right now, just focus preparing for LDAC. I got active duty with stats almost identical to yours as an end of camp last summer (with a S at camp) so you're defiently on the right track but like the other posters said I don't think anyone will be able to tell you if your likely to get it this year because of all the changes to the OML. Just keep pushing all the way through to that last day of LDAC and you should be fine.
 
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From everything I've seen and from what the accessions team told us at camp, the GPA points are taken straight from your cumulative GPA. A 3.35 GPA = 33.5 points. While having a 4.0 in ROTC and the previous semester might be nice, it is my understanding that it is not afforded any special weight.
 
From everything I've seen and from what the accessions team told us at camp, the GPA points are taken straight from your cumulative GPA. A 3.35 GPA = 33.5 points. While having a 4.0 in ROTC and the previous semester might be nice, it is my understanding that it is not afforded any special weight.

This is how it was for my son's accession package as well.
 
Umm I don't really consider a 3.35 GPA weak especially if it's a STEM major. I know many EE and Chem guys who would have sold their soul for that GPA. Even with the changes I think it would put him on par with getting AD.

It's okay, but not good. We had several cadets get RD with 3.3 or 3.4 when they either got mediocre LDAC scores or were lower on the PMS eval.

It's entirely possible he gets AD with a 3.35, but lets not pretend like it's great. Hence why he needs to excel in his last semester before LDAC and do well there.
 
3.35 is low.......
In my battalion, they stressed standard for "good grades" that's accepted is 3.5 tech, 3.8 non-STEM.
I think all of our DMG's had 4.0's and that is not uncommon....
 
I currently a MS3 and had a few questions in regards to the new OML and accessions for 2014. First I want to know what the major changes are. Second I want some advice on what my chances of getting active this fall.

I max the PT test, have a 3.35 GPA currently and am ranked 14/29 in the our program's MS3 class OML. I'm Getting 50/50 overall E's and S's on campus with an average of 4-6 dimensional E's. I do several EC activities and did ranger challenge (we got 2nd out of the BN :( October), and A LOT of color guards.

I wasn't concerned at the beginning of the 3 year but I have heard a lot about how the AD slots got slashed and am worried about getting forced into reserve components.

I want to know what my chances are, what the OML cutoff will look like and if there is anything additional I can do to boost my score. Our MS3 instructor has been vague about these as he is not 100% sure himself. If anyone has any insight on this I would greatly appreciate it.

If it matters at all, I want to branch FA and want to ADSO.

Getting back to your resume, I have a couple of questions...

1) You are maxing your PT (Can I assume here that you've been doing it since day 1?) and your GPA is 3.35 and YET you are an "average" cadet in your BN. Do you go to the world's easiest grading school, or is there something else that is keeping you down the OML?

2) Besides doing "a LOT of colorguards", and RC, are you doing anything else in the BN? Are you doing anything else on campus? Are you being selected for leadership positions?

What I suspect here is that you seem to have a perception problem. It goes 2 ways... If you are not being selected for leadership positions, I suspect that your cadre suspects your leadership skills. They aren't perceiving you as a leader of your peers. This would also explain why you may be being outranked by cadets with lower GPAs and/or PT scores.

While you may get great scores on campus technical training (E's and S's), lots of cadets can land navigate all day long and all the other technical soldiering skills, but are you getting the same positives on your feedback from running lanes at FTX?

The other direction for perception is whether you perceive the any issues with your leadership skills that may be holding you back. Some folks are quiet and introspective and their body language and eye contact says "I'm checked into my own situation, not yours." This can be deadly. Others of this type actively engage with their peers on a non-verbal basis that inspires confidence without saying a word. Do your peers thing of you as high-speed? Or are you invisible? The cadre don't see invisible cadets when it comes time to rank.

Not trying to pick on you, but the academic, PT, and scoring don't seem to add up to your current rank within your BN. If you can get to the bottom of this, you may be able to improve your most damaging metric - your OML position.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I've been taking winter credits and tried to pick easier classes and I SHOULD have anywhere between 3.4-3.45. To answer your question about my ranking there are several fatcors. I'm at a very competitive program and in order to be eligible to contract you need at minimum a 270 and 3.2 Gpa because we didn't have enough slots for LDAC this year.

Also the in class OML was from last semester where I hade a 3.26 and 295 apft.
 
Wow. I probably wouldn't have made AD in your battalion if that's really the case. Is this the University of Krypton? Just goes to show you, in many ways the school is just as important as the student.
 
Wow. I probably wouldn't have made AD in your battalion if that's really the case. Is this the University of Krypton? Just goes to show you, in many ways the school is just as important as the student.

I have to agree with you on that one.

My son had a 3.5 and finished in the top 10%, there's more to it then just the GPA.
 
3.35 is low.......
In my battalion, they stressed standard for "good grades" that's accepted is 3.5 tech, 3.8 non-STEM.
I think all of our DMG's had 4.0's and that is not uncommon....


Stressed standard and reality are two different things. 3.35 in any situation is a solid GPA. As long as you aren't lacking severely in other areas you should be fine.
 
Umm I don't really consider a 3.35 GPA weak especially if it's a STEM major. I know many EE and Chem guys who would have sold their soul for that GPA. Even with the changes I think it would put him on par with getting AD.


Yeah I agree. I think you will be fine. Improve what you can in the time you have left.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I've been taking winter credits and tried to pick easier classes and I SHOULD have anywhere between 3.4-3.45. To answer your question about my ranking there are several fatcors. I'm at a very competitive program and in order to be eligible to contract you need at minimum a 270 and 3.2 Gpa because we didn't have enough slots for LDAC this year.

Also the in class OML was from last semester where I hade a 3.26 and 295 apft.


Your BN clearly has an excess of cadets for their mission with a cutoff like that.

If you can move your GPA up .1, by the end of MS3 year, both your rank within the BN and your OMS will improve considerably (rank within BN has a significant bearing on OMS as well).

Not sure what other OMS points you have in your resume (athletics, non-ROTC leadership, employment, etc.), but your major metrics are in line with those who get AD.
 
We just got an updated oml and the class I retook plugged in on my transcript. I have a 3.48 and am now 9/32 in our current MS3 roster. I'm wondering if there is any additional advice I should take in in terms of getting AD and also what my current standing is indicative of.
 
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