Army ROTC for Active Sailor

CharginC

Squid-Soldier-Statesman
5-Year Member
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
2
Hello to everyone,

I'm on active duty in the Navy for the foreseeable future and am very seriously eyeballing Army ROTC as an option post/late enlistment. I'm old at 23 for a guy with around four years of contract left, so Academies are out, and I have a few questions it seems the inter-branch nature of this forum could help with. Thanks for reading!

Simply put, I'm very attracted to the O-jobs available in the Army and think I would perform well in the OML system at ROTC... not to mention the Branch choice is alleged to be better than for 9D/OCS Candidates. This is why no in-service commissioning program appeals much to me.

My skill sets would most directly apply to Sig/MI, but I find the prospect of other branches very exciting as well. Would the prior enlisted experience (direct equivalent to 35P) give me a slight kick toward those two Branches (MI/Sig)?

Is there a 368/early release option for another branch's ROTC? The best I've seen is 90 days early release, but I wonder if the DoN would release an active PO3 with a couple of years of good service if a successful university and ROTC application were made... They do it via STA-21 but only for Navy O-Slots.

Assuming there's no early release, I stand to ETS around the first of the year when I'm 28. With prior service, I'm pretty confident my age wouldn't be problematic for entering ROTC, but would it interfere with Scholarship eligibility? I have credit toward a degree and enough skills to justify only 2-3 years to a Bachelor's, at least in my eyes. With MGIB the scholarship isn't most critical but would certainly help with some of the more extravagant schools on the dream sheet.

I have around 100 university level credits and a Humanities AA from a community college and a DOD language AA (GPA 4.0 and 3.8ish respectively). I definitely want to advance my languages, and am looking at schools like Georgetown, JHU, Tufts, etc for the study of IR and languages concurrently.

I attended the last of those briefly but couldn't afford to graduate, leaving me where I am now... I'm reasonably confident in my ability to get into at least one of the schools, and I think I could be a strong asset to an ROTC program (I'm not Army, but work around them all day and on their turf).

Both for Walsh and The Hoya battalion, Georgetown seems like the ultimate pipe dream for me. If that doesn't present itself, what are other strong ROTC programs around the country that have good Middle East languages and IR programs? I'm aware of Michigan, Arizona, GW, UCB, etc... Would be happy to expand the list of prospects, though!

Finally, I know there are threads here on this topic for rising seniors, but how would ROTC view NCAA involvement from a geezer like me with all his eligibility years remaining? Burdensome, awkward, and foolish? Or perhaps a 'positive collateral' as they seem to view it for trad. students? Tremendous fan of Olympic lifting and T&F, both of which help me keep PT up to high standards.

Sorry for the really long intro post and many thanks to any who respond. Thanks for your time and expertise.
Respectfully,
A hopeful Sailor
 
I'll try and touch on a few of your questions.

Your current MOS in the Navy will not have any pull in getting your branch choice through ROTC. Signal has slots for certain majors but IR is not one of them.

There are plenty of ROTC cadets that are the age you will be when you leave the Navy and your correct in that it won't be an issue.

As far as scholarships, you can compete for a Campus based scholarship given by the individual battalion, your age won't be a factor.

You might want to have a conversation with a Recruiting Officer (ROO) at one of the schools you are interested in. Since you are prior service you would most likely be able to skip your first two years of AROTC and start as a MS3 since you may have the credits needed to start school as a junior. You would want to check with the ROO to confirm that this would work with prior service Navy.

Even if the Navy TIS doesn't count towards AROTC you could still join as a MS3 by going to LTC the summer before starting school as long as you have the credits needed to allow you to graduate in 2 years.

I'm sorry, I do not know much about the early release option, that's something you would need to talk to the ROO and your CoC about. Someone here may be able to shed a little more light on that subject.

Involvement in NCAA is not a problem as long as you work everything out with the Battalion Cadre. Time management becomes the only issue and the Army will want to be the top option when there are conflicts. The most important thing is to keep up with your grades and APFT, things are changing within the OML over the next few years and you'll want to have a clear picture going in what you will need to succeed.

Sounds like you have a good plan, never to early to start the research. Welcome.
 
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