- Joined
- Apr 22, 2009
- Messages
- 152
School choice gets a little complicated with NROTC. If you put an in-state school as the first on your list, it is very very highly unlikely that you will ever be able to transfer the scholarship to a private school even if the private school unit has openings. Both of your first two choices are in-state schools where the Units traditionally have openings late in the scholarship cycle. The problem is if you put UCB first and get the NROTC scholarship on the first board with a Tier 1 major to UCB, you won't find out if you are admitted to UCB until March. If you don't get in to UCB you are then limited to only in-state schools to transfer your scholarship across the country so as a back up apply to a bunch of them. Some units will have been long closed like SDSU and Texas A & M to name a couple of obvious ones. Conversely, if you put as #1 choice a private school where you are at least close to a safety for admission and would be happy to spend four years there, then you start out with a backup already essentially in place after receiving a scholarship. If then, in March you get accepted to UCB or UCLA, you could transfer pretty easily to an open unit giving up your private school scholarship for a public one. You also have more options for transfers if it comes to that. This is why it's important to call every unit and ask when they traditionally fill up for NROTC scholarships, how long their waiting list is, what percentage get off the waiting list etc in additional to all of the other questions you may ask. Apply to more than 5 NROTC schools to help for the late scramble.
3 of our kids have received NROTC scholarships in the past 3 years and it's been a real learning process with a number of complications cropping up just to make it interesting along the way. Here are some things that I have learned that are helpful to me:
Ask your recruiter for input on your essay or people you know who have sat on an NROTC board. If your recruiter is good, he'll have some valuable insights. If not maybe you can get some names of someone who has insight into the program that can look it over for you.
Get your whole package done early. I think August is a little late but if they can't get you an interview before that then that's what you work with.
Call a lot of Units and get familiar with all aspects. They are also great resources for chances of admission at their schools, I suggest that before asking on a forum. Go and meet with any NROTC Units that you can visit, even if they are not high on your list. You will learn from every place you go.
Remember that neither your recruiter nor the Units are going to necessarily understand the school choice complications, it's a decentralized process.
Since it's a decentralized process, your local recruiter has no visibility on your package once it is sent off. If your package gets "lost in the shuffle", they will not know but they won't tell you that they do not know. If your recruiter says you are a shoo-in for the first board and you don't get picked up, he'll tell you, no problem, wait for the next board. Instead, call the NROTC office in Pensacola and find out if they have your package and if it went before the board. This isn't as unusual a problem as it should be.