Changing schools

sacmom

5-Year Member
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Feb 4, 2010
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Does anyone know how difficult it is to switch schools for AROTC scholarship awards. My son was offered scholarship to Santa Clara University and USD. He's been accepted to USD, but waiting to hear from Santa Clara. I'm wondering how difficult it would be to change schools if he didn't get accepted to SCU. We were told admission acceptance letter don't go out until April 1st, but he has to accept his scholarship by March. Not sure if he should take his chances and wait to hear from SCU. Thanks.
 
You have 2 ways into SCU with a scholarship - Take the SCU scholarship now and risk having to change back if denied Admission or Take the USD scholarship now and risk no available slots to transfer into in the spring.

One thought is to ask the SCU ROO if he has any/many SA applicants/admittees likely to go SA or on the other end scholarship takers not likely to be admitted. This will give you an idea of how difficult it may be to transfer your scholarship.

I am told that you have to be admitted to a school to have a transferrable scholarship, so if you do take the SCU scholarship, you are rolling the dice with the chance of no scholarship if denied admission.
 
It's not going to be as easy this year. Many of the schools have seen their scholarships cut by 50%. In order to be able to transfer the scholarship to another school there has to be an allotment slot left for your son to transfer into.

I just researched this last week and spoke with many people and here are the exact words from a PMS...
"The change in school is always an option, but never a certainty."

Can you get in touch with the PMS at SCU and see what his chances are at admissions? Maybe they can step in and help you out.

Good luck in making the decision.
 
So if he sits and waits to be accepted to Santa Clara he could pretty much risk losing his scholarship if he is denied admission right? His best bet would be to accept the scholarship to USD and if he gets in to SCU, then he can transfer it to them. Thanks, I didn't think accepting the scholarship would be a difficult choice.
 
So if he sits and waits to be accepted to Santa Clara he could pretty much risk losing his scholarship if he is denied admission right? His best bet would be to accept the scholarship to USD and if he gets in to SCU, then he can transfer it to them. Thanks, I didn't think accepting the scholarship would be a difficult choice.

He can transfer it to SCU if there is an allotment slot available from Cadet Command. At least that is how it has been explained to me by two different PMS, an ROTC advisor and CC.
Since SCU seems to be his first choice I really would get in touch with the PMS there and get some advice.
 
In our experience this year, the PMS's have so few scholarship $ that they very carefully look at the admission possiblity before they decide to make an offer. At my daughter's #1 school, there were 75 applications for the December board. They eliminated 55 of those from consideration because they were not likely to get admitted, and then they awarded 4 scholarships. If the PMS at SCU handed out a scholarship to your son, odds are he thinks your son will get admitted. I'd contact him right away to get his insight. He may already know that your son will get admitted or is highly likely to get admitted.
 
SCU ROO very responsive to questions

My experience in asking questions about Stanford (sister ROTC school to Santa Clara) is that I've had my emails responded to very quickly...and I sent my questions in over Winter break. Contact MAJ Larry Gnewuch[LGnewuch@scu.edu] and I'm sure he can help you with your questions.
 
I switched my scholarship to Santa Clara after I was denied admission to another school. I was able to do it very quickly and the staff at Santa Clara, especially Captain Mucker, were very helpful.

When I contacted Captain Mucker, he told me that there were two ways I could switch. He said I could wait until May when Cadet Command would send a letter out asking if I wanted to switch schools, or I could send my letter of acceptance to Santa Clara to someone at Cadet Command, which I ended up doing. Within a day of doing this my scholarship was switched. Maybe you could do the same when you receive the letter of acceptance from Santa Clara in April.

Santa Clara is a great school and the ROTC program there is outstanding. I also applied to USD and from looking at College Board stats, USD was a little more competitive to get into than Santa Clara.
 
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