Hi everyone, my DD was offered Army, Navy, and Air Force [Type 1] ROTC scholarships to an Ivy League university. I wanted to know the extent to which these scholarships help in the admission process to the university. Any personal anecdotes would be helpful. Thanks!
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pv123
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Which college? Yes I have 2 DDs who had the same scenario.
I'm currently in a US News top-10 university with a Type-1 -- in short, elite institutions couldn't care less whether an applicant has a scholarship or not. First, if I'm not mistaken, all of the Ivy Leagues have a need-blind policy for US Citizens/Green Card holders so outside scholarships do not factor into the admissions decision. Second, historically for my Det, the cadre always tries to negotiate candidates with AF scholarships, but not everyone gets through the admissions wall.
unkown1961
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It's definitely worth letting admissions know. We called and said "just wanted to update the app package because she was just awarded an ROTC scholarship...). You can also let the unit of her top school choice know and also tell them that their school is the top choice.
From what we experienced with the selective schools (Including Cal and MIT in there with the Ivies), some units have a little bit of influence and some don't. Given the huge endowments, these schools have, saving one kid's tuition isn't really a deal breaker sometimes.
With Navy, we kept the "sure thing" school as the first choice for both kids until we found out they got in their reach schools. Then they emailed Navy to switch the #1 choice of schools. We'd heard stories of kids with their reach schools as the top choice, and then when they didn't get in, the units at schools they were accepted into were full.
Good luck!
From what we experienced with the selective schools (Including Cal and MIT in there with the Ivies), some units have a little bit of influence and some don't. Given the huge endowments, these schools have, saving one kid's tuition isn't really a deal breaker sometimes.
With Navy, we kept the "sure thing" school as the first choice for both kids until we found out they got in their reach schools. Then they emailed Navy to switch the #1 choice of schools. We'd heard stories of kids with their reach schools as the top choice, and then when they didn't get in, the units at schools they were accepted into were full.
Good luck!
My DS was in AROTC at Princeton. The Tiger Battalion has (at least it did when he was there) a close working relationship with the University. My DS was told that his name was on a list given to admissions. He had been deferred during SCEA and after his name was on the list, he was admitted during regular admission. Was it the key factor? Who knows. He had been assigned by NROTC to another Ivy and that unit told him it wouldn't make any difference at that school. So like everyone says, it depends.
My sons are 4 years apart and applied to some of the same Ivies. It appears how much any school factors an ROTC scholarship into any admission decision changes over time (probably dependent upon who is in University or Admissions leadership positions and/or who is in the Battalion leadership positions) so anecdotes are probably of limited value. Both sons ended up at the same Ivy with 4 year ROTC scholarships; however, for one son the unit/school didn't seem to coordinate at all whereas at the time of my other son's app it was clear there was coordination and input by the unit.
My husband was the recruiting/admissions officer for AFROTC at an Ivy. He said that they would always call both Admissions and the academic department with names of students they were interested in and the it was a factor in the university admissions process. As was stated above, probably not a dramatic help, but help nonetheless.
Agree. It is not the scholarship which is important, but factors which led to the scholarship can be an influence. My DD applied to several Ivy's but did not apply for an ROTC scholarship. She did, however, make it clear that she planned to be a part of ROTC on campus and to commission as an officer. She also had leadership in high school as CO of a large NJROTC unit. I believe this was a factor in admissions. As part of their application supplement, the schools asked what activities she planned to be involved in while on campus and ROTC was the primary one. While the Ivy's have more than enough students qualified academically to attend, and they seek to admit students on a need-blind basis, they do want to fill the various organizations on campus. ROTC won't make up for low academics, but if the other factors are there for the student, the school may be more in need of students to fill out an ROTC unit than students to fill out the band.
That's the official line, but the numbers don't support this claim.
For any school in this country, Ivy or otherwise, to meet its revenue target is not possible unless the process can somehow - indirectly or otherwise, with algorithms or human intervention - take into account each applicant's likely revenue ie tuition contribution.
Consider: Year in, year out, not less than 45-50% of each matriculating class is paying full-freight, ie, of the 12 Ivy+ schools, nearly 10,000 students must be found among the 1-2% of the population that can actually pay nearly $300k for an undergrad degree.
Here's the problem with the "need-blind" claim: the 1-2% stratum of our society isn't (yet) large enough to produce 10,000 super-achieving students! It is a statistical certainty that, of the 16,000 National Merit Semi-Finalists in the nation each year, no more than 20-25% - MAXIMUM - will come from the wealthiest 1-2% of American families. As the College Board's own SAT score distribution and score data by income indicate, the likely % of NMSF students who are super-wealthy is probably <10% of NMSFs.
Also note that, even among the wealthiest cohorts - our elite private schools charging >$40k per year - typically no more than 25% are National Merit Semi-Finalists. (There are a handful of outliers such as Silicon Valley's Harker School, of which ca. 50% win NMSF status each year). Add up all the nation's super-achievers who are also super-wealthy and you won't get close to the 10,000 seats that need to be filled each year by the Ivy+ 12 schools.
So some significant portion of the 10,000 admits who contribute maximum tuition, ie who are full-freight, must be drawn from the NON-wealthy portion of the population.
That means the Ivy+ Admissions officers need to find super-achievers who are either
a) super-wealthy US or "international" ie Chinese, Korean, etc children of gazillionaires, oligarchs, royalty etc
OR
b) US students who can pay tuition 100% thanks to scholarships from external sources (Gates Foundation, ROTC etc).
It may well be that Harvard and Yale can find enough students to fill their full-freight slots from among category a) above, with no real need to dip into category b). Probably also the case for Princeton, Columbia and maybe even MIT.
But it is almost certainly the case that the other schools need to meet their revenue (tuition) numbers with a non-trivial number of b) super-achieving, non-wealthy, external scholarship recipients.
So the "need-blind admissions" line is a fib.
(Note also that our science of inferring consumer income, credit-worthiness etc is advanced enough that that all that ANY Admissions Office needs, in the way of data elements, to infer an applicant's likely ability to pay full freight ie wealth is a combination of their own historical financial aid data joined to some/all of these easily extracted attributes of the college application, each of which is a good predictor of wealth and income:
- home address (can easily ascertain the annual principal, interest, mortgage and tax payment)
- school name (can be matched to historical applicant and enrollee data to estimate income)
- parents' occupation;
- extracurricular pursuits;
- foreign travel.
There's no need to contact the Financial Aid office regarding any individual application when you have many decades of such data points sourced from tens of thousands of students.
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5centsmom
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May I suggest that the schools’ own funds/endowment categories set aside for financial aid are a big $ source somewhat ignored in the above post. When you’ve got billions... there are def articles out there about how some schools’ endowments & annual alum donations are actually large enough to not have to charge tuition at all.
But back to the main topic, i rather agree with bman. ROTC students are a natural source of campus leaders, will be employed upon graduation, and are a diversity bucket in campus life. How many times have we all sat thru a college’s info session & heard the school brag about how many of their recent grads had jobs? Even if only 20 kids come into the program each year and it barely squeaks over the 1% of the class population, that’s pretty good. (I imagine career counseling offices love this group best) These same scholars fill buckets for all sorts of academic departments, x-currics....
Definitely always reach out when you can. Any voice, whether an academic dept or a ROTC leader adding their voice to your application is a plus.
Now if only, in our situation, we knew whether DS will get a scholarship or be accepted to which schools!!! Take advantage of your position in line if you do know and show interest!!!!!
But back to the main topic, i rather agree with bman. ROTC students are a natural source of campus leaders, will be employed upon graduation, and are a diversity bucket in campus life. How many times have we all sat thru a college’s info session & heard the school brag about how many of their recent grads had jobs? Even if only 20 kids come into the program each year and it barely squeaks over the 1% of the class population, that’s pretty good. (I imagine career counseling offices love this group best) These same scholars fill buckets for all sorts of academic departments, x-currics....
Definitely always reach out when you can. Any voice, whether an academic dept or a ROTC leader adding their voice to your application is a plus.
Now if only, in our situation, we knew whether DS will get a scholarship or be accepted to which schools!!! Take advantage of your position in line if you do know and show interest!!!!!
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Stanford use to make everyone go through financial aid applications when they knew everyone under 100,00 in earnings were going to get it anyway. Several years ago they just decided to forget it and gave everyone who made under 100K free tuition and those who made under 60K, free room and board.
FWIW, from talking to admissions officers and recruiting leads within several Detachments, this is my impression of the degree to which ROTC has influence on admissions at top-tier schools:
Harvard, Yale, Penn, Stanford: ROTC has next to zero influence on admissions. Those ROTC who were admitted would have been admitted regardless of their military interest/orientation.
MIT: can have significant influence on admissions in individual cases. AFROTC detachment will work closely with the adcom to influence a decision for a desired AFROTC HSSP winner
Princeton: some influence for AROTC, zero for AFROTC (Princeton doesn't have AFROTC); don't know but doubtful re NROTC
Columbia, Brown: seem to be interested in reversing decades-long perception as indifferent/hostile to the military and are keen to recruit more vets generally, but so far no tangible evidence of influence of ROTC on admissions decisions
Chicago: there's less institutional hostility to the military at U-Chicago than in the Ivy League, as Chicago is significantly more conservative than the other elites. It's probably worth reaching out directly to the VP of Admissions, as he told me he very much likes ROTC applicants ("They're the nicest people!"). However, no evidence of institutional cooperation between ROTC and the Admissions Office.
Duke: possibly have some influence. The AFROTC national office told me they are seeking to get more AFROTC HSSP winners admitted to Duke... not sure whether the Duke admissions office shares the sentiment.
Harvard, Yale, Penn, Stanford: ROTC has next to zero influence on admissions. Those ROTC who were admitted would have been admitted regardless of their military interest/orientation.
MIT: can have significant influence on admissions in individual cases. AFROTC detachment will work closely with the adcom to influence a decision for a desired AFROTC HSSP winner
Princeton: some influence for AROTC, zero for AFROTC (Princeton doesn't have AFROTC); don't know but doubtful re NROTC
Columbia, Brown: seem to be interested in reversing decades-long perception as indifferent/hostile to the military and are keen to recruit more vets generally, but so far no tangible evidence of influence of ROTC on admissions decisions
Chicago: there's less institutional hostility to the military at U-Chicago than in the Ivy League, as Chicago is significantly more conservative than the other elites. It's probably worth reaching out directly to the VP of Admissions, as he told me he very much likes ROTC applicants ("They're the nicest people!"). However, no evidence of institutional cooperation between ROTC and the Admissions Office.
Duke: possibly have some influence. The AFROTC national office told me they are seeking to get more AFROTC HSSP winners admitted to Duke... not sure whether the Duke admissions office shares the sentiment.
Don't know about Cornell or Northwestern, but re. U Chicago, AFROTC at least seems possible.The host detachment for U Chicago AFROTC is located 4 miles away, just south of downtown - Det 195 at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). That's only about a 25-minute trip via bus and the Red Line subway or "L" (for Elevated rail line) from the U Chicago campus.
fwiw, Northwestern's history and attitude toward ROTC seem similar to Harvard's: initially a major source of naval officers, then shut down entirely during the turmoil of the late 1960's, and only now cautiously crawling back to acceptance by a faculty and university community that is still very suspicious of, if not actively hostile to, the military.
I've noticed what seems to be a high correlation between how favorable a university or college is to free speech and how friendly it is to the military (with one exception, RPI, which seems to be locked in a bitter internal battle with a heavy-handed and thin-skinned university president).
I've found this website, which monitors university administrations' attitudes toward free speech and restriction thereof, to be a pretty good first-cut identifier of campuses that are unfriendly to the military: https://www.thefire.org/schools/
Note that, among the Top 10 Worst Colleges For Free Speech in the nation are Harvard and Northwestern, neither of which seems very friendly to ROTC, along with perennial crazies such as Evergreen State and DePaul U:
https://www.thefire.org/the-10-worst-colleges-for-free-speech-2018/
The only elite colleges that make the (relatively short) list of "green" rated ie pro-free speech colleges are Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Emory U., U Chicago, and U Pennsylvania.
UNC, UVA, William & Mary and Purdue are the only top-tier public universities on this shortlist for best colleges for free speech. Most of the others are located in the south and midwest, and include many very pro-ROTC colleges:
https://www.thefire.org/spotlight/?x=&y=&speech_code=Green&submit=GO
beepybeetle
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If anyone has questions about Brown's ROTC in particular, I can try to answer them in private. I don't want to post anything on a public post since there are so few of us here it would be relatively easy to identify us.