I plan on majoring in Political Science, History or Communications. How will this affect my chances of a getting an NROTC scholarship?
The NROTC has a Tier system for Majory and Scholarships. Here is a sample of the Majors for each Tier.
Tier 1 Academic Majors
Aerospace, Aeronautical, Astronautical Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Naval Architecture & Marine/Naval Engineering
Nuclear Engineering
Ocean Engineering
Systems Engineering
Tier 2 Academic Majors
Agricultural/Biological Engineering & Bioengineering
Architectural Engineering/Architectural Engineering Technologies
Astrophysics
Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology
Biomathematics & Bioinformatics
Biomedical/Medical Engineering
Biotechnology
Cell/Cellular Biology & Anatomical Sciences
Ceramic Sciences & Engineering
Chemistry
Civil Engineering
Computer Engineering
Computer Programming
Computer Science/Info. Tech.
Tier 3 Academic Majors
Political Sceince
History
Communications
English
Liberal Arts Degrees
The greates number of Scholarships are given to the Tier 1 and 2 Majors. The last number I have heard is 5% given to Tier 3 Majors.
To answer your question, a Tier 3 Scholarship will be difficult but not impossible. You will need very high stats, the competition has gotten very hard. Most USNA applicants will also apply for the NROTC as a back up. Go the the Naval Academy website and look at the stats of those appointed last year and you will get an idea of where you need to be. In some cases depending on your school selections NROTC Scholarships can be harder to get then an appointment to the USNA.
The NROTC Marine Corps Option does not have a Tier system for Majors.
AFROTC takes your Major into account as well.
Army ROTC does not care at this point what your Major is.
Make sure you are at the top of your game, you will need to have amazing stats to compete for a Tier 3 Major Scholarship in NROTC
My son will be a Political Sceince Major this Fall, he is doing Army ROTC and received the 4 year scholarship. Political Sceince should be an interesting time next year with all that is going on right now and the election comming in 2012.
Good Luck