does the college choice matter?

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With us not having an in-state university to apply to I think both the public and private's now hurt his chances even more.

Most of the privates have 52k to 60k a year costs. The publics our DS picked are around the 42k range, North Carolina State University is even lower I believe.

If he qualified for a school merit scholarship does that factor into any offerings? It's not a good thing if your a kid that does not have an instate public University to apply to.

Now I have a feeling that the kids that don't have the public instate option face an even larger uphill battle. UGH!!

Thank you al for your feedback.

I sure do hope he gets into the Academy as it was his "A" plan No.1 choice. He went through NASS this summer and a sports camp, loved it. His application for the Academy is complete as well as his B&G interview. All his documents are in for the Congressman and Senators, just waiting for the interview. I was a bit amazed at the amout of work he had to put inot all this.

He remains grounded as he is now getting his "C" plan in place. Colleges in the event "A & B" don't work.

This all just gets me more and more confused. Sometimes I think I have a grip on the understanding of it all and then bamm a new twist to what I really don't understand.
 
First I like the #1 choice of University of South Carolina. I would expect your son to be accepted there. My DS was accepted there with lesser stats. They seem eager to attract OOS students. He might even win a Woodrow scholarship which enabled my DS to attend there (brought tuition down to near what it would have cost to send him to NC State just down the road from us). He entered NROTC Marine Option as a college programmer and won an in-school scholarship in December of his sophomore year. BTW, he was also accepted at NC State but spent some time on the waiting list first. So I think his choice of schools is fine as is.

It's my understanding that NROTC boards award the scholarship first and that another group determines which school so I'm not sure he's at a disadvantage with only OOS schools on his list. He does appear to be a strong candidate for a scholarship.

One more thing about University of South Carolina. I don't know if they still do it, but the NROTC unit's alumni association used to provide scholarships to college programmer's who completed freshman orientation which were equivalent to the Woodrow Scholarship. Unfortunately you can't use both the Woodrow and this alumni scholarship. It might be worth asking the cadre about this to confirm if you get a chance to speak with them.
 
Excellent...

Thank you kinnem. I started thinking that with no in-state school to apply to this may be an uphill battle. I'll look into the info you provided.

Up's and downs, twists and turns, the roller coaster has started I guess. Time to sit back and just enjoy the ride.:thumb:
 
Ex.BT.USN said:
Thank you kinnem. I started thinking that with no in-state school to apply to this may be an uphill battle.
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I am on road but remember a list of NROTC schools which treat scholarship winners as "in state" status

Will send later
 
USMCGrunt said:
I am on road but remember a list of NROTC schools which treat scholarship winners as "in state" status

Will send later
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I think there is a fairly long list of these but one that comes to mind is Texas A&M.
 
USMCGrunt said:
I am on road but remember a list of NROTC schools which treat scholarship winners as "in state" status

Will send later
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Ok... here are two quotes from P-Flying17. Recommend you PM her (or at least search for posts from her as she is an insider who can confirm these points)

The following was posted by P-Flying17 back in Sept 2011. P-Flying17 is a NROTC insider and always helpful with clarifying information. This may be dated and should definately be checked out. But it is a starting point:

"The best thing to do is call the NROTC Unit at the school you are interested in and ask if that school offers reciprical agreements.

Any NROTC Scholarship student is eligible for instate tuition at any public Texas School.
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University at Galveston
University of Texas
University of Houston
Texas Southern University

There are schools that offer reciprical agreements with other states, but none to the effect that Texas does.

For instance State University of New York offers instate tuition for residents of Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Wisconsin has a reciprocal agreement with Minnesota.

Minnesota currently has one with North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

The Citadel offers to certain counties in Georgia. South Carolina will occassionally offer instate tuition eligible scholarships."

A more recent comment from P-Flying17:

"also any public Texas school. University of Houston, TAMU, UT, Rutgers as well. Next year, maybe Minnesota. University of South Carolina is good about giving scholarships that reduce tuition to that of instate or close to it, but would have to have that documentation before applying it to instate tuition cost."
 
Please understand that I don't have any insider knowledge on the selection process, but I have noticed that there have been some candidates with truly exceptional credentials who have been shut out - and the common theme that I could discern is that they had heavily weighted their choices to OOS public schools. I am sure that UNC, NCST, and USC are fine schools that your DS can get accepted to, but the reality is that the Navy's tuition cost will more than double if it awards a scholarship at those schools to an OOS student. The Navy is also under a legal obligation to award a minimum percentage of NROTC scholarships to students who qualify for in-state tuition. You should understand that it doesn't really matter that OOS tuition at a public school is less than a private school - what matters is that it will always be cheaper to give the public school scholarship to an in-state candidate. I also don't think that the board takes other scholarships into account - they almost certainly have to assume that they are going to have to pay the full amount of the tuition bill.

To some extent the system is unfair to candidates who don't have an in-state school with NROTC, and it may be the case that there is some consideration given for that, but who knows? Even for candidates who do have an in-state choice, a lot of candidates (especially in large states) are forced to compete for a handful of spots, and the scholarship often isn't even worth all that much. I think that every candidate ought to be focusing primarily on the private schools that they can list. Scholarships are going to be awarded to almost every one of them, and it may actually be easier to find an expensive private school that is a good fit for the candidate and also the selection board - particularly if you avoid the exceptionally popular choices (like Notre Dame). A candidate with your DS credentials has a good chance of being accepted at most of the schools that offer NROTC, and a decent shot even at the very selective ones.
 
Some guidance on the subject from the NCSU NROTC office. Source: http://naval.dasa.ncsu.edu/sites/na...sitors/Scholarship application info-2013F.pdf

"Once a board has chosen the hundred or so students it will select, those applications are then sent to a placement department which determines what college/university NROTC unit each scholarship will be assigned to. Obviously, every effort is made to place a student where he/she wants to go, but other factors do come into play. For example, each particular unit (there are roughly 70 total) has a certain ―quota‖ or max number of students that they can accept in a given year. NC State’s quota is usually 30. For us, this means that once 30 students have been placed in our unit and have accepted the scholarship offer, no additional students will be added here. If a 31st student was selected and their application went to placement, they may then be assigned to their number two, three, or four choice of school (again, depending on availability at that school). There are a few ―morals‖ to this story. First, it is very important that you actually apply to all of the five schools that you list on your scholarship application because it is possible that you may not be assigned to your first choice. Second, you want to have your application completed early (before the August board) so that you maximize your odds of being assigned to your first choice (because certain schools, like NC State, tend to fill up fast). Other things that affect placement include whether a certain school would be in-state or out-of-state for a particular student. As you might expect, this doesn’t apply to private schools like Duke, MIT, etc. where there is no difference in tuition and most students come from out-of-state. It does, however, apply to state schools like NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, etc. For these type of schools, the Navy requires that a minimum of 50 percent of students placed there come from within that particular state. It is for this reason that you will be required to place at least one state school on your list of five."
 
DeskJockey said:
Please understand that I don't have any insider knowledge on the selection process, but I have noticed that there have been some candidates with truly exceptional credentials who have been shut out - and the common theme that I could discern is that they had heavily weighted their choices to OOS public schools. .
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OK, if it us true that budget is a large factor with the Board (which others think is not the case), then why on earth would you recommend that OP's son list privates like Fordham and BU at the top... they cost the Navy even MORE than OOS Publics!
 
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The reason why I have suggested that it may be more advantageous to list expensive private schools than less-expensive OOS schools is because the Navy is going to allocate a certain number of scholarships to public schools and to private ones. The private school cost will be the same no matter who gets a scholarship - the Navy is going to shell out $50K for someone to go to BU, whether it is the OP's son or someone else. But it will ALWAYS cost the Navy more money to give a scholarship at a public school to an OOS candidate. That is why they have a rule that require that at least 50% of the scholarships at public schools must go to in-state students.

It may be the case that once the 50% target has been reached, the Navy doesn't care if the rest of the scholarships go to OOS students, even though it would significantly increase the total cost of scholarships at the school. In this budget environment, I think it may be the case that the Navy does care, and that in-state students will have an edge for most or all of the slots.

I did not say that it was impossible for a candidate to get a scholarship to an OOS public school, or that a student should not list an OOS public school on his or her list. What I did say is that because of the budget factor, it may not be a good strategy to have your top three or four choices be OOS public schools. My secondary point is that there are almost always going to be a large number of qualified candidates for each public school on the list, but there are some very good private schools that will be less popular choices (for a variety of reasons). If a student is a good fit academically then it may be to his or her advantage to put them on the list.

In an ideal world, everyone could get a scholarship to the school of their choice. That is the AFROTC model, but the trade-off is that the scholarships are more limited in terms of the dollar amount and the choice of major. In the NROTC competition, choice of school is a factor, and candidates have to take that into consideration. I am not telling anyone what to do - I am simply putting my two cents worth of speculation as to how best to choose the right mix of schools on the list.
 
DeskJockey said:
In an ideal world, everyone could get a scholarship to the school of their choice. That is the AFROTC model, but the trade-off is that the scholarships are more limited in terms of the dollar amount and the choice of major. In the NROTC competition, choice of school is a factor, and candidates have to take that into consideration. I am not telling anyone what to do - I am simply putting my two cents worth of speculation as to how best to choose the right mix of schools on the list.
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80% of AFROTC are type 7 which require one to attend an in-state school or one that will charge instate tuition.
 
As I understand it, a student can elect to convert a 4-year Type 7 scholarship to a 3-year Type 2 scholarship, which can be used at any school.
 
Packer is correct it is capped with 18K, Type 1 is no cap. Type 2, you pay the difference over 18K. Understand that many, if not the majority of colleges typically jack their tuition up every yr by at least 5%, some as much as 10%. If the cost for 13/14 is 18K, it is likely that it will be @19 when you enter. By the time you graduate it can be close to 25-30K.

Our DS entered and it was under 28K (tuition and R & B). It was 41K when he graduated 4 yrs later as an OOS student at the flagship state university. OOS tuition alone at his college for this yr (2012/13) was $27,288, IS on the other hand was 8,909 for tuition.

Our DD is IS at a state university and will graduate this yr. She started in 2010 and it was 15.6K, this yr's bill is over 21K. Cheap by all standards, but still a 25% increase in 4 yrs.

In the end the AFROTC deal is not as appealing financially since it is capped. The cap was only moved back in 09 from 15K to 18K, and with budgetary constraints occurring for the next decade, I would not expect an increase anytime soon.

Also, if I recall A/NROTC allow the scholarship to be applied to tuition or R &B, AFROTC allows only tuition. If you get a Type 2, it is UP TO 18K. If the bill is 13,400, you can't apply the 4600 to R&B or get a check cut back.

JMPO, but NROTC from a financial aspect is better overall, since as Packer stated, 80% of AFROTC are given a Type 7, thus, it still limits their choices.
 
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goaliedad said:
I want to say there was a member here who went to Wheaton...
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Vista123, Check your PMs. I go to Wheaton and I'm happy to help in any way I can!

PS-Sorry for this being a few pages out of context. Just wanted to make sure it got through.
 
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