I have received my nomination to attend the Naval Academy and I was wondering how difficult it is to graduate as a Marine officer. That is my goal and I really do not desire to be a Navy officer nearly as much as a Marine officer. I know I am not guranteed to be admitted even after recieving a nomination, however, I am seriously interested now. Thanks for any advice.
Service selection assignments are not made until the end of the first semester of your First Class (i.e. senior) year.
There are quotas in just about all categories and they seem to be more stringently invoked than they have in years past. Whether you get what you want is heavily biased toward a combination of your class standing and your individual aptitudes. In other words, just because your class rank is higher than somebody else does not necessarily mean you will get what you want over that person.
The academy has been sending record numbers of graduates into the Marine Corps the past few years - as you might suspect would be the case in a time of war in areas such as Afghanistan.
If that's what you want - and you do well - you should be able to get a commission in the Marine Corps. It is not as selective as some of the other service selections - unless you want to get Marine
Air.
You cannot, however, individually select Marine Air and Marine Ground.
First they select you for Marine Corps and
then they decide whether you get an aviation contract or not. In other words, you cannot want to be a Marine aviator and be unwilling to be a Marine grunt.
Get used to
this phrase: ... the needs of the Navy.
You shouldn't consider military service if you find all options, other than what
you want, to be unacceptable.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to go to the Naval Academy and be a Marine - but be prepared to serve in a submarine. The past few years they have been drafting midshipmen,
involuntarily, into that service selection.
Of course, the administration would
never characterize it in that way. They practically force you to put all possibilities on your preference card. There's almost no way around it. And when they give you your third choice, they say, "Hey, it was
on your preference card". That's how they get around saying that you were "forced" to serve. You "asked" for it.
As a graduate - I find their current system somewhat discouraging. In my day, it was rare that somebody did not get something they were qualified for. The only disappointments in my day were:
1.) Those who wanted to fly but did not physically qualify - usually because they did not have 20/20 uncorrected vision. There was no corrective procedure in those days.
2.) Those who wanted to go Nuke Power (i.e. subs) but didn't have the grades.
Submarines were actually quite popular in my day. Nowadays, they are relatively
unpopular.
I'm sure they must have had quotas in my day - but I do not recall those quotas being advertised or invoked. It seemed they had more flexibility.
Service Selection was not nearly as stressful in those days as it is these days.