Not really accurate...School choice actually is taken into account when the scholarship is awarded. School choice isn’t part of the boarding process, but once the OML is set for a round of offers school choice is what is used to decide where the offers are made. Also “other schools” don’t award spots. Cadet Command makes offers.
The answer two the question is Yes...Common sense would tell us an SMC will have more students interested in one of the ROTC programs. During the national process most schools are only allowed to be filled to a certain percentage of their mission. In my case my mission is 17 Lieutenants in 4 years. Because I’m fairly lucky with the National Process I usually End up with 10-12 scholarship winners from the National Process (about 60% of my mission). Cadet Commands goal is usually 60-70% of a cohort on scholarship by senior year (all beer math here).
If you want to attend A&M, apply to A&M. You can’t control how many others apply, or how competitive they are...you can only control how competitive you are. SMCs are all going to be more competitive than most regular colleges.
While I agree with 90% of what my friend and colleague, Clarkson, says in his response, there are some nuanced differences I’d like to point out. At Penn State, we build the core of our Battalion from our high school scholarship winners and move forward. Often times, our success with that group is a strong indication of whether we’ll hit our numbers four years down the road.
When awarding scholarships out of the Boards, USACC absolutely does their best to distribute scholarship money, as best as possible. 80% of a unit’s commission mission is the key number that caps a school...at first.
Here’s the rub: for the past 5-6 years, USACC has approved well over 90% of HS scholarship transfer requests. They’ve seen better trends from selecting the best applicants and allowing them to attend their school of choice, rather than making school choice, tuition rates and ‘equitable distribution’ critical criteria. The only exceptions to this trend are nurses, where it’s still possible to transfer scholarships, but not nearly at the 90% rate.
What does that mean for applicants? Like Clarkson said, list the schools you’re considering from most to least desirable. That said, I really can’t stress this recommendation enough, though: make sure you list SEVEN PROGRAMS in your application (the maximum amount). You’re only hurting yourself if you put down less. Remember, even only one offer to your #7 program, comes with a high probability of approval, should you request a transfer (to Penn State, of course).
For context: our program has been capped the past two years at 80%, before the second board was complete. Both years have ended with us welcoming over 100% of our commission mission in scholarship winners, due to successful scholarship transfers.
I hope that helps!