Our DS also got accepted to colleges he did not apply to for admittance. These were not eh college (UNCCH and NYU Sterns). This is what the AFROTC det CC at UNCCH told our DS.
Many admissions boards have a ROTC CC sit on the board. Every CC receives the list of scholarship recipients from the latest board for their specific branch with what type of scholarship they receive. The AFROTC CC will not see the list for NROTC and AROTC, just the AFROTC. Now that CC at some colleges can bring to the admission board that scholarship recipient. The college than in turn can admit the student.
This is what some people call the push/pull method. They push for the student to pull them in.
There are multiple reason why dets. try to do this.
1. ROTC CoCs are Active Duty officers. They will be reviewed based on the success of the unit. Retention rate is one of the aspects. Yrs ago for AFROTC overall selection rate for SFT was @55%. The board is masked, iows they do not know which cadet is on scholarship and which cadet is not. However, they will see their academic gpas. Many ROTC recipients also have merit scholarships from the college, and typically the merit scholarship will require a much higher gpa than the ROTC scholarship. For our DS he had to maintain a 3.2 every semester, not avg., but every semester for his college merit. That meant he was academically competitive. Thus, his det had a higher % of cadets selected vs the overall selection rate bc they had more kids on scholarship. This in turn helped the staff get better OERs. His det. won 2x in a span of 5 yrs the best large det in the nation.
~ Marketing the det. to not only cadets by stating they have won the best det in the nation, but ADAF officers. The likelihood that your Cadre will remain the exact same personnel from the time you enter until you graduate is basically nil. The ADAF will rotate in and out (PCS)
2. Dets have ICSP that they can award to cadets. However, just like the HSSP it is a limited pot of gold. The more HSSP recipients they have than they have fewer competing for an ICSP.
~ Marketing to the cadets that X% of cadets that apply for an ICSP get it compared to the national %.
3. Retention rate. I hate to write this, but I have been here way too long. I have read this way too many times, and the units know this to be true.
~ Every yr. wise posters will say only apply for the branch, major and college you want. Don't game the system. IE 80-85% of all AFROTC scholarships go to tech (STEM) degrees. UNCCH is known as a Public Ivy school. Live in NC and you get IS tuition. OOS and you are paying top dollar. Need a type 1 to pay, and you think you have to go engineering to raise your chances, although that is not your academic desires, but attending UNCCH is your college desire. Freshmen fall semester rolls around and now the poster is back saying....I hate my major, love ROTC love the school, can I keep my scholarship bc I need it to pay for school. Answer is slim to none. Thus, the cadet buckles down just so they can stay.
~ This goes back to #1. ADAF officers will be reviewed on retention. They are competing nationally. How do you recruit PMS officers? Great det. stats. It is a never ending circle. Great stats for the det. starts with great recruitment for cadets. Great recruitment comes from great stats for the det. A candidate with a type 1 can take it anywhere in the nation, it is not tied to the school. Long ago, ERAU would market their det as the highest amount of pilot slots awarded, only after USAFA. Sounds amazing if you want to get a pilot slot and bc of that they were/are able to recruit more students.
Just bc University of Timbucktoo offered admittance to an AFROTC scholarship recipient this yr., does not mean it will happen next yr. Why? Simple. They rotate the ROTC CoC yrly. This yr., it was AFROTC to sit on the board. Next yr.. it could be NROTC. than followed by AROTC the yr. after that.
~ See above regarding push/pull. This is why posters will say it does no harm to interview at the college you want to attend. The CoCs know each other on campus. It's not like there are a lot of O5s walking around at the school. They talk. Although they may not be on the board that yr., they do know the admissions committee members.
Lastly, there are for profit organizations that will say for $100 fee we can get you admitted to Timbucktoo. Thus. if they are asking for $$$ than beware.
~ FWIW, that is how I found out that they do this and why. I actually called UNCCH thinking it was a scam, and wanted to alert them that they are using UNCCH letterhead. They placed me on hold, a new person picked up, and said, yes, Mrs. Pima we have your DS's file and all he has to do is to sign the form attached to matriculate. HUH, he never applied! We know that Mrs. Pima, the AFROTC CoC sits on our admissions board this yr. and they placed his name forward. His academic stats match our incoming class so we are happy to offer him admission.
~ DS called UNCCH and NYU AFROTC and they told him the exact same thing. He did not matriculate to either of those colleges. When he got to his college, he thought this was common, only to find out that his friends (non-scholarship) applied to some of the same schools and were rejected (OOS like him). They were shocked that he never applied and was accepted. That was actually how many found out he was on scholarship. They had put 2 +2 together.
