NROTC Likelihood

Thank you all for the congratulations! To respond to justdoit19, I’ve already graduated high school and I’m currently in Africa. If I get the scholarship, I’ll accept it and use it when I begin school in the fall of 2020. Besides not wearing ripped jeans (good one), what other advice do you all have for the ISR interview? There’s been a change of command, so I’ll be interviewing with the new commanding officer, and it’ll be a FaceTime interview.
What questions have others encountered in the past?
 
Navman said:
Thank you all for the congratulations! To respond to justdoit19, I’ve already graduated high school and I’m currently in Africa. If I get the scholarship, I’ll accept it and use it when I begin school in the fall of 2020. Besides not wearing ripped jeans (good one), what other advice do you all have for the ISR interview? There’s been a change of command, so I’ll be interviewing with the new commanding officer, and it’ll be a FaceTime interview.
What questions have others encountered in the past?
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What we learned going through the ISR is that there seem to be two ways COs run the process. Some interview several candidates, then decide to whom to award the scholarships. Other districts decide the candidates to award the scholarships to, then the CO interviews them basically for approval. My DS was in the latter category. His was quite relaxed and was just kind of getting to know my DS and asking him to commit to using the scholarship if it was awarded. DS was not applying for any SAs, so he was more than eager to give that assurance. Others on here have said the interview was more formal and it was a competition to be awarded the ISR. Their's seemed to be more like the initial officer interview. If you've made it to this point, I'm sure you will do well. Think about why you want to be an officer; which warfare community most interests you and why; examples of times you have shown leadership, what you learned from the experience, times you may have fallen short as a leader and what you learned, etc. Give complete, thoughtful answers and be yourself. Good luck. I look forward to hearing how it went.
 
Here’s an interesting update: my recruiter just email me and said he has to apologize because he thought that I was a current high school senior. He assumed I was doing an abroad program and that I was graduating in 2020. He said when he was screening my package, he was accidentally looking at the transcripts of another student who is a current senior at the school I graduated from. Apparently you have to be a current high school senior to receive an ISR, so I’m ineligible. However, I think the fact that I was mistakenly selected for ISR and I’m not eligible only because of I’m not a senior, I think that’s a good indicator of a competitive package. Because, bedsides my graduated status, I met every other requirement for an ISR.
 
Appreciate your keeping the board updated as this could really help future candidates. You are spot-on that your application being flagged for ISR, even if ultimately you are ineligible, is a positive indication. Something jumps out at me here though to confirm - Are you sure you are overall still eligible for the national scholarships even though you are not in HS at this time, is that correct / did you confirm? Good luck.

Navman said:
Here’s an interesting update: my recruiter just email me and said he has to apologize because he thought that I was a current high school senior. He assumed I was doing an abroad program and that I was graduating in 2020. He said when he was screening my package, he was accidentally looking at the transcripts of another student who is a current senior at the school I graduated from. Apparently you have to be a current high school senior to receive an ISR, so I’m ineligible. However, I think the fact that I was mistakenly selected for ISR and I’m not eligible only because of I’m not a senior, I think that’s a good indicator of a competitive package. Because, bedsides my graduated status, I met every other requirement for an ISR.
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Navman said:
Here’s an interesting update: my recruiter just email me and said he has to apologize because he thought that I was a current high school senior. He assumed I was doing an abroad program and that I was graduating in 2020. He said when he was screening my package, he was accidentally looking at the transcripts of another student who is a current senior at the school I graduated from. Apparently you have to be a current high school senior to receive an ISR, so I’m ineligible. However, I think the fact that I was mistakenly selected for ISR and I’m not eligible only because of I’m not a senior, I think that’s a good indicator of a competitive package. Because, bedsides my graduated status, I met every other requirement for an ISR.
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TY for the update. It seemed off to me with that “off” year. That’s how I also understood it. Direct entry. Which you are not. Will be interesting to see how this pans out for you. And also for the “owner of the transcript” student.

Best wishes. Sorry for the news, those were pretty big oversights (wrong transcripts, assuming an abroad year, assuming you were a senior) on the recruiters part. Yikes!
 
This is what I found. As a general joe, looking for info....

https://www.nrotc.navy.mil/entrance_requirements.html

Towards the bottom:

“If you are not attending college, or do not plan to attend college in the Fall of the application period, you must submit the following additional information:

A statement describing your activities during this period or letter of recommendation from your employer.”

Maybe that’s different than not applying for the ‘fall after you graduate high school’?

I thought the NROTC High School Scholarship Program (HSSP) was for direct entry only. Are there other options for a 4year scholarship other than direct entry, or college programmer? I guess that’s the actual question! Someone must know for certain.
 
justdoit19 said:
I thought the NROTC High School Scholarship Program (HSSP) was for direct entry only. Are there other options for a 4year scholarship other than direct entry, or college programmer? I guess that’s the actual question! Someone must know for certain.
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Last I looked, as long as one had fewer than 30 credit hours then one could apply for the 4 year HSSP scholarship. The reason for the statement describing activities is that they want to know one was using their time productively during their gap year. "I played video games" is probably not the answer they are looking for. "I spent a year with the Peace Corps" is probably more in line with what they want although I'm sure the gamut is large.
 
Thanks for notifying me of the statement of my activities — another thing my recruiter never mentioned. Do you think it’s ok if I post some helpful documents that I found on the web during my application process? I don’t know if there’s any rules or stipulations on this forum regarding the sharing of documents. After all, I found each of them on the web so they should already be considered public...
 
And yes kinnem, you are correct that one can apply for the 4 year scholarship if he/she has less than 30 college credits under their belt.
 
My finished package (with the letter) is being sent in today! Now it’s time for arguably one of the hardest parts: waiting. For the betterment of current and future applicants, here are a couple helpful sources I found while I was digging for info:


-I’m sure many have come across this already, but it’s worth mentioning. This is the Officer Interview Resource Guide. The officer who interviews you will ask you these questions verbatim (or at least mine did, and according to the document I think they’re supposed to). https://www.public.navy.mil/netc/nstc/SitePages/NR/Officer_Interview_Reference_Guide_2015.pdf


-This is a quick reference guide that the NROTC recruiters use. I found it to be helpful to look at the forms that they see. For example, if you look at the officer interview forms, they really do grade you on how you dress and your posture during the interview:

https://www.public.navy.mil/netc/nstc/NR/Navy_Recruiter_Quick_Reference_Guide.pdf#page40



-Here is a good document of info regarding how many scholarships there are and how the different types are allocated:

https://www.public.navy.mil/netc/ns.../NSTC_Notices/NSTCNOTE 1533 - NOPMS 18-19.pdf


-A lot of the NSTC Notices contain plenty of info about a range of things related to NROTC:

https://www.public.navy.mil/netc/nstc/SitePages/NSTC_Directives/notices.aspx


Finally, here’s some advice for all of the future applicants that may come across this page: I know it’s been said numerous times before, but always always always double check what your recruiter is telling you with an outside source if you can. There are several things that my recruiter mixed up, either because he forgot or he didn’t know something. Us applicants need to remember that our recruiters are human beings too, so they are bound to make mistakes. They are probably just as busy as you are. Even the guys who have been doing this for a long time still make mistakes. My application is a good example of that (my recruiter is retiring from the Navy after this year). Remember that you need to take ownership of YOUR application. It is YOUR job to get yourself where you want to be, and you should try to rely on your recruiter as little as possible. Every leader out in the fleet needs to take extreme responsibility over his/her own circumstances, so if you plan on being a leader in the world’s finest military, you should start modeling that responsibility right now. I suggest that every time before you contact your recruiter that you first research the questions you have for him/her and read all relevant materials and keep them close by so you can facilitate the conversation as smoothly as possible or even find out that you didn’t need to reach out in the first place. Don’t get me wrong—recruiters are amazing people and they work diligently to get the best version of your application turned in, but you can’t sit back because of that. You need to be constantly proactive. Just put your heart into it and if this is what you really want to do, then DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP!


Best wishes to all you future leaders.
 
@Navman, this is super helpful. My son just finished his NROTC interview Tuesday, and he had just located and reviewed the Officer Interview Resource guide the night before. The officer actually pulled the document out during the interview. This info will be great for future applicants.
 
Yeah, my interviewing officer read the questions right off of the document. Good luck to your son! Glad to be of assistance.
 
Our DS interviews at 7:30 am Monday for NROTC, then drives back almost 1.5 hours for his AFA. Might need to adjust AFA time for traffic....... good luck to all, thanks for any and all info in this thread.
 
I understand the struggle—I had to drive across my state and into another one to interview. Good luck to him!
 
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