January 4, 2011 AROTC Board

justin777 said:
Well im not actually sure if i have anything. I have talked to the recruiting officer a Liberty several times, but it was really over stuff like education delays for med school and such... which is quite far away. I also talked to him about the average apft score at the school, so i could judge myself in comparison. Now if it helps at all, he said the average junior cadet gets around a 270 on the apft. Also we talked about what majors would probably be best for a scholarship... which were technical fields so i changed to biochemistry. Also some schools will pay for room and board... in which my other 2 choices do, but Liberty doesnt pay for room and board...only tuition and fees. Did you DS go to a college for a weekend or visit the detachment?
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That's interesting info Justin777 :biggrin:
I had not inquired about the average aptf score. I was aware of the tech majors being more desirable, but my DS is wanting to stay in the original area of interest. Baylor is also on my DS list.... interesting that they help with R&B! (yay!)
DS did go to a weekend at Liberty. Met with personnel at the detachment, but not the ROO... schedules didn't work out to do so, unfortunately.
We didn't go to any others yet.... have you had a chance too?
 
jkcksoup said:
That's interesting info Justin777 :biggrin:
I had not inquired about the average aptf score. I was aware of the tech majors being more desirable, but my DS is wanting to stay in the original area of interest. Baylor is also on my DS list.... interesting that they help with R&B! (yay!)
DS did go to a weekend at Liberty. Met with personnel at the detachment, but not the ROO... schedules didn't work out to do so, unfortunately.
We didn't go to any others yet.... have you had a chance too?
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I have been to university of central oklahoma with the cross town agreement with oklahoma christian university because my brother and sister both were scholarship cadet there so of course family tradition sets me to go there. Now i havent been to baylor but my brother works at fort hood and has been to waco several times and loves the campus. The only thing to me is that they only require bible classes freshman and sophomore years....and to me bible classes are very important. But im pretty much set on liberty or oklahoma. I do love though how liberty has an indoor track for pt so when it gets cold you just go inside. so liberty is your DS's top school. to me i would rather pay for some room and board for such a great christian education.:shake:
 
justin777 said:
so liberty is your DS's top school. to me i would rather pay for some room and board for such a great christian education.:shake:
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Ditto!
We feel the same!
My DS was really impressed with the year round ski slope at Liberty too. :thumb:

Now we wait :tank1:
 
January 7th

Good morning. We received an email from DS 1st choice, Ohio U, yesterday. They are offering an openhouse for parents/prospects to discuss the SMP program. DS is confused, after all the work and worry about AROTC scholarship, he's like - WAIT, this would have worked too??? So we are going up 22 Jan. to hear the details on the program. Do any of you have information or have faced deciding between AROTC scholarship vs the SMP? We have the basic information, but just curious if anyone as feedback. Have a great Friday:wiggle:
 
I think I just wrote an email indicating that if the scholarship thing doesn't work out that SMP and GRFD are options. Here are the drawbacks. SMP requires the student to drill while in college. That is a time commitment they may not be ready for. SMP doesn't usually contract until sophomore year, so they don't get stipend until they are sophomores. They can have access to GI bill and tuition assistance depending on which component and whether they attend Basic and AIT. The GRFD scholarship locks them into the guard or reserves upon graduation and precludes them from accessing onto active duty.

This should definitely be a blog post. I'll get something up with some links and more info, because not everyone will get a scholarship, and there are plenty of other options.
 
Posting info on SMP would be very helpful to many. We were in this situation last year, waiting for the 4-yr scholarship, but needing a Plan B if it didn't happen. Our son did not get the 4-yr, so he joined the Reserves in March of his senior year. He signed up for the split option so he could do basic training in the summer, start college in the fall, and then do AIT the next summer. Halfway thru BCT in July, we were notified of an offer for a ROTC 3-yr scholarship! We accepted for him, but he will have to decide on which route to go before his sophomore year: 1) Stay in Reserves, and do SMP as planned and turn down the scholarship 2) Stay in Reserves, do SMP and take scholarship (which turns into the GRFD), or 3) Drop Reserves and just do scholarship.

To make matters more complicated, he really took to the discipline of the Army and decided he wanted to apply to the USMA. He's gone through that whole process and now we wait.

It's all good, because he has several ways he can go. But I can't say it's been easy. As clarksonarmy said, drilling during college makes for a juggling act sometimes and can be difficult, especially when the locations of college, home and the drill unit come into play. His year was also very crammed since he left for BCT 3 days after graduating high school, and only had about 3 days between BCT and starting college. Throw in processing for Reserves, ROTC activities and adjusting to college life (oh... and congressional interviews, etc. for West Point), and it's been really crazy.
 
Ohio2015Parent said:
Do any of you have information or have faced deciding between AROTC scholarship vs the SMP? We have the basic information, but just curious if anyone as feedback. Have a great Friday:wiggle:
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FWIW;
SMP was backup plan for my son, all six of the PMS's he talked to about it told him that if was offered a 4yr AROTC scholarship, to accept it. He received a 4yr AROTC scholarship and still really wanted to go to Basic training, he emailed his new PMS and was told absolutely do not join SMP.
(he said 'Yes Sir'):oops:




Good SMP PowerPoint from Purdue HERE
 
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Here is what I run into often...recruiter convinces applicant the he'll be a better officer if he experiences Basic and serves some enlisted time. I'm not even going to get started on that debate other than to say I totally disagree that it will or won't make you better. The problem come when the recruiter convinces the applicant to take the first semester off to complete BT and AIT, or convinces her/him that getting to college a week or two late won't be that big a deal. The reserve recruiter I work closely here in Potsdam knows better than to try that stuff. Additionally, when an soldier ships to BT, there is no guarantee that you will graduate on time. Fail a PT test, get hurt, miss some training, and you just missed the start of the semester. Try going to your Drill Sergeant and tell him/her that you can't stick around any longer because you have to get back for your freshman year.

SMP is a great program. It's the perfect program for some, but a solid 4 year applicant who desires to serve on active duty some day should keep their eye on the ball. A good ROO should be able to point the applicant who doesn't get an offer in the right direction pretty quickly.

Blog post...maybe with link to Purdue powerpoint to follow.
 
SMP

Thanks for the input!! I knew there would be good info from the forum - will look for the link ClarksonArmy mentioned and forward it to DS. The email from the ROO at Ohio U. was targetted to all of their current non-scholarship prospects - he pointed out the extremly competitiveness of the Oct board and did point out that SOME of these prospects would receive offers out of Jan and Mar boards, but that they would put this information out for those needing a Plan B. DS is still a strong candidate for Jan board (32 ACT, 3.8uw, 7 APs, Eagle, Student Senate Pres and all, but no varsity athletics w/ a 210 on APFT in July)so we hope he's just going to waste time at this SMP information program (mom and dad too) but want to add this to his Plans B-E that we already have in place. Will be good to tell him that AROTC national scholarship is still is best option for AD officership.
 
January 8th

I saw the link for the Purdue power point at the bottom of Gojack's post. Have book marked to go over with DS (he's camping with the Scouts this weekend; Klondike in the snow w/ windchill in single digits...better him than me:yllol:) Hope everyone has a good weekend.
 
January 9th

Good morning. Doing my normal routine this morning...checking email, facebook, online paper and of course, here and today just because, I checked the link to application status for AROTC applications.... the site is down - my screen simply says this "Internet Explorer Cannot Display the WebPage", tried to go thru the goarmy link -- it now dumps you into a "for sale" domain name site??? Anyhow, this link worked just fine Friday (yeah, I'm bored and a little OCD:wink:) so anyway, I know a number of you are WAY more tech savy than I am...if you get the chance, please look into this -- I know Internet Explorer is weird sometimes, but I don't know how to do any other program (maybe I can check w/ DS when he gets home for camping later today). Anyhow, just really want a valid, working link for later this month when results start posting:thumb: Thanks!!!
 
Has anyone recieved any news from the January 4th board yet?? Im so anxious to see!
 
The site appears to be down. I am getting the same error. Haven't heard from my DS, either.

This is my first post on this forum, by the way.
 
patentesq said:
The site appears to be down. I am getting the same error. Haven't heard from my DS, either.

This is my first post on this forum, by the way.
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Im new here as well. When i first started checking the status it was down on the goarmy.com site but I could Google "ROTC Application Status" and click on the link and it would work. But now thats not working. Who knows maybe theyre updating it now and thats why its down :rolleyes:
 
That was my thought as well. Do you suppose the Army IT staff works on Sunday??

Ohio2015Parent: Thank you for starting this thread.
 
The link on goarmy.com is wrong. Try adding a 's' to the http and it works fine.
 
FloridaDad said:
The link on goarmy.com is wrong. Try adding a 's' to the http and it works fine.
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Hum...I tried adding the s and still got the Internet Explorer cannot open screen. did I do this right? I changed the goarmy check status address to:

https://schlr4yr.usarmyrotc.com/scholarhipstatus. the other link I've had that had been working is https://schlr4yr.usaarmyrotc.com/ scholarshipstatus/cadetstatushome.html.

As mentioned, I'm not real tech savy, so it may just be something with my computer, don't want to get anyone started on the "Oh, maybe they're working and updating today..." its too soon - we shouldn't hear anything until Monday, 24Jan at the soonest from what I've seen on the previous boards results - about 10 business day from the end of the Jan boards(7Jan) plus there is the MLK government holiday in there. Thanks for trying to help Floridadad, I'll have to have DS look into Foxfire or something like that - I've heard it does better with some sites??? Will check back later if anyone finds a solution :smile:
 
Oh, and welcome patentesq and Bdl1127... it will be a long month, hoping we all can hide out together until the end of board season - Mar/Apr - so we can see who gets what to where....:thumb:
 
Thanks for the welcome. Ill keeo everyone updated when i hear anything
 
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