Job selection

[jeffwar613]

What is the process of choosing your career like at the naval academy? Say I want to be a Navy Seal, but don't make the cut, could I choose marine corps or any other option after that? Do the admission and staff choose based on your performance?

 

[SteveHolt243]

Generally speaking, you'll put in your preferences ranked (usually you are required to put surface warfare somewhere in the top few). Based off your performance in community-based screeners, your medical clearance, and most importantly (for most communities), your order of merit.

For the bigger communities (SWO and aviation), selection seemed to be primarily off order of merit, and the other things really only came in as you got towards the bottom of the class; in the smaller communities (SEALs especially), the screeners become far more important - the boards don't really care if you're number 1 in the class if you never did any of the screeners or showed interest until selection time.

Admissions has nothing to do with it - it is decided firstie year.

 

[Capt MJ]

Do some searching on other threads here on "service selection."

Very broadly, your annual summer training will give you practical exposure to Navy and Marine Corps operational units. You will get plenty of briefs on each service and individual warfare communities. You will have opportunities to talk to Navy and Marine officers on the Yard from various communities within their service. You will watch upperclass go through their decision process. You will start ruling stuff out along the way for various reasons, when you realize subs are cool but maybe not for you, or you can't seem to get a good grade on aviation aptitude tests ... and ruling stuff in, as when you get back from, say, an aviation or surface cruise or Leatherneck (Marine) where you got to see some real stuff, and you cannot stop saying, "that was SO amazing, I want to do that." It usually gets down to your top 2-3 choices by 1/C summer, and in the fall, you take a deep breath and set 'em down. The needs of the Navy and Marine Corps then kick in, throw in a dash of your class standing, and somewhat later in the fall, your future will be made clear. In the past there has been an interview process as well for some communities, and perhaps some special screeners for others. Current mids can enlighten us, I'm sure.

 

[marvin7794]

Well put shipmate. Some of the less desirable communities (Subs, NFO) snatch up qualified midshipman who put other communities down as their first or second choice. The majority of mids choose between Navy Air, Navy NFO, SWO, Subs, USMC Ground, and USMC Air. SEALs and EOD have a slightly different way of doing things, as mentioned above.
For those who go the normal route, if you are not in the top third in OOM, you should probably be ready to accept any of your top three choices. PRK has depleted the nuke pool, so they try to lure people in with beer and hot wings at socials. Likewise, the SWOS give out ice cream sometimes. That is how they trick the young in before they eat them/stab them in the back. Supposedly subs is "all volunteer," but from what I've seen I beg to differ. If you aren't considering aviation at all, don't take the ASTB. Successfully passing it ups your odds of getting pilot, or even worse....FO.

 

[DMeix]

I'm pretty sure SPECWAR is the only community that still holds an interview with a board of officers from the community. This happens after you submit your preferences, and is considered far more important than your performance in the screener. Screeners are only used to determine who will get the applicable summer training cruise, but it's generally accepted that if you don't do a SEAL cruise your chances are slim to none of getting selected in the fall.

The 'screeners' you hear of are just ways to narrow down the number of interested and give the most qualified the training. Airborne, Air Assault, and Dive schools are the most common screeners. They usually consist of a PFT, ruck run, and in the case of Dive school, a PST and lots of pool time.

The SEAL screener is (rightfully) considered the hardest. Held in November, it's usually getting pretty cold outside. We started at 1600 on Friday and were secured at 2130 Saturday night, with a 20 min nap early Saturday morning. Evolutions include Break-out (3-4 hrs of chaos on HP), 5-6 hrs in the pool, a mile swim in the river, 8 mile ruck-run (mine weighed in at 72 lbs) in under 2 hrs, E and O courses, boat races, a 'base tour' run, and the endless whistle drills, etc. You get the idea. ADM Olson, the current commander of SOCOM came and talked to us as we held our boats at hi-port, and was the one who secured us Saturday night. I shredded two pairs of cammies from so much low crawling on dirt and concrete, but had a great time. There were definitely moments where I didn't think I would make it. My lowest point was during the bay swim, which was right after the ruck run...my legs didn't want to work (water temp was ~58-60), and I recall just looking up at the sky thinking "God...a pizza and a warm shower would be amazing right now"

I wouldn't call it 'politics' but there is some trickiness to getting selected for SEAL or EOD. An '08 grad in my company was thought to have SEALs in the bag, but as his second choice, he put USMC. During his interview, the board of SEALs saw this and commented that he 'really wanted to get into the fight.' He was then told that he would do well in the Marine Corps...

For SEALs, what they're really looking for is someone who's not going to give up on the dream. It's generally known that if you dont' have SEALs as 1st, and SWO as 2nd that you won't get SEAL.

 

[Kero]

As mentioned above the big communities are mostly based on order of merit. The exception being marines which is also heavily influenced on leatherneck performance and general face time with marines on the yard.

Subs has the most formal interview process, but lately due to low numbers they reject very few people. Nuke SWO goes through the same interview process as subs but is much more competative because there are far fewer spots and females can select it.

Other smaller communities have interview processes like SWO (Ocean option), EDO, etc. But there are only a handfully of these spots.

The only true physical screeners I remember were SEALs and EOD and those are the main influence on selecting either of those communities.

Finally medical is kind of a different entity entirely and if thats what your interested in become a chem major.

 

[DMeix]

If you aren't considering aviation at all, don't take the ASTB. Successfully passing it ups your odds of getting pilot, or even worse....FO.

Starting with 2010, every mid must take the ASTB prior to service selection. Huge waste of time and resources in my opinion...don't ask me why they started that...It's beyond me

 

[Kero]

Starting with 2010, every mid must take the ASTB prior to service selection. Huge waste of time and resources in my opinion...don't ask me why they started that...It's beyond me

Probably for the same reasoning that when I was in A-pool in pensacola they tried to get us to take it 3 times a week because according to them the Navy was paying for us to work "8 hours a day".

 

[jeffwar613]

I'm still in high school but I can relate to wanting to be in the fight. I've always wanted to be a marine but have recently started looking at the Navy Seals. My biggest concern (not including getting accepted to USNA in the first place) is that I will not be given my chosen career. If I got SEALs or USMC I would be happy but I don't know about the other options. Do most people who put down USMC as one of their top choices get it?

 

[marvin7794]

I'm sure the academy is making everyone take it so that they can force you to go NFO if you don't want to. I guess I should say force you to go pilot too, but that isn't a bad thing.

 

[MIDNDAD]

I'm still in high school but I can relate to wanting to be in the fight. I've always wanted to be a marine but have recently started looking at the Navy Seals. My biggest concern (not including getting accepted to USNA in the first place) is that I will not be given my chosen career. If I got SEALs or USMC I would be happy but I don't know about the other options. Do most people who put down USMC as one of their top choices get it?

It's nice to have plans and goals but you have got the cart way in front of the horse. Objective 1 should be get into the academy. With 15,000 applications this year that is no small task. Assumeing you get in, you have to survive 4 years and graduate. In those 4 years you will have exposure to all your options. You have a minimum of 4 years from now to determine if your "dream goals" of today match up with the reality of tomorrow. Best of luck to you.

 

[jbrown]

It's nice to have plans and goals but you have got the cart way in front of the horse. Objective 1 should be get into the academy. With 15,000 applications this year that is no small task. Assumeing you get in, you have to survive 4 years and graduate. In those 4 years you will have exposure to all your options. You have a minimum of 4 years from now to determine if your "dream goals" of today match up with the reality of tomorrow. Best of luck to you.

If USMC or SEALS is your end goal, there are more than one way to achieve that.

For example to get to USMC there are 5 paths towards a commission. 1 of those is USNA, 1 is PLC, 1 is via a program for enlisted personnel, one is ROTC and one is OCC. The majority come from PLC.

For SEALS, there is USNA first, or you can go enlisted and then go SEALS, etc.

I would recommend you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Figure out what you want your end goal to be, and map the courses and go for each route. Also, post on here what your end goals are and get advice and find out about all of the paths to that goal.

JB