NROTC Scholarship - Tier Question

[Dolphins2012]

A request for a fundamental clarification: let's say a candidate receives a 4 year scholarship award for NROTC. How does the scholarship award designate the "Tier" from which you must select your major? Is this based strictly off of your major selection on the application? (My DS', e.g. was chemical engineering and political science as the second choice).

In a nutshell, my DS is wondering if he'll be locked into a Tier 1 major because of his chemical engineering selection as a first choice major in his NROTC application, or if it is possible to select a Tier 2 or 3 major after the scholarship is awarded.

 

[dunninla]

Not likely, unless your son is in a very high priority category such as a Top 20 school. The Tiers are very important. Somebody with an NROTC scholarship needs to confirm this, but it has been written many, many times on these Boards that changing Tier downward (from Tier I to Tier III in your case) would usually result in the forfeiture of the scholarship. It is much harder to earn a Scholarship as a Tier III due to the fact tha 75% of college students are Tier III, but only 15% of NROTC scholarships can be awarded Tier III.

The NROTC must maintain 85% Tier I + Tier II. Changing out of Tier I + II into III is very, very hard to get approved.

If your son is dead set on Political Science, then Army ROTC, which has not madated 85% STEM as NROTC has, would be an option to pursue that would have better odds to succeed, and might provide another avenue to consider. The deadline to apply AROTC was 10 Jan last year, and probably is the same this year.

 

[PotentialParent]

Seems like it would be difficult to move majors. Here is the wording from their website, and a link.

Academic majors listed in each Tier may vary year to year dependent on the Navy's requirements, however once accepted into an academic major and Tier, a student’s Tier status will not change.

A student may request a modification from their original academic major. Changing from a Tier 1, Tier 2, or LREC major requires approval from a formal panel and will be based on the needs of the Navy.

http://www.nrotc.navy.mil/scholarship_criteria.aspx

 

[Dolphins2012]

I just talked to a naval officer at a university's NROTC unit. He said that the Tier to which an applicant's scholarship is limited is based on the candidate's designation of majors in his/her application. The officer said that one may change their decided major prior to registration to a Tier 3 major, but you risk losing the scholarship. Which, he hastened to point out, means that it is possible to switch from Tier 1 to Tier 3.

It seems it largely depends on the strength of the applicant and slots needed to be filled in the schools NROTC unit. My son is applying to all top 25 schools and Univ. of Illinois (our home state) and has an LOA to the Naval Academy, so I'm hoping that such a switch is easier in the top schools in the event that he does NROTC and not USNA.

 

[dunninla]

Dolphins,

It's interesting that my DD applied NROTC as a Tier II, Biology. In the first week of January, she had a change of heart, and asked me whether an NROTC scholarship would allow her to change from Bio to International Relations, PoliSci, etc.

I quickly consulted this Board for advice, since with her cousin commissioning out of the Naval Academy last May, she hadn't even consider Army. Not that she had any preference for driving fixed wing, or a sub, or a floating city, just a question of loyalty. Her app to AROTC was in four days later, the day before the deadline. She was awarded an AROTC scholarship out of the Third Board, the only Board appropriate to January applications. By February she had decided that if awarded both Navy and Army, she would select the AROTC because of the flexible major policy (that is changing this year with those going before the Board). Her interest is in Military Intelligence, and actually Army offers more ability to tie down that service community (Branch) at the time of Commissioning than does Navy. She was not awarded an NROTC scholarship ultimately.
'
In the end she stuck with Tier II (which Army calls ADM II), in a somewhat uncommon major that is a combination of Chemistry, Biology and Psychology called NeuroScience. She would have been OK probably in NROTC with Bio, but she wanted that insurance of being able to change to Art History or anything else she became interested in in Freshman year of college without risking her participation in the accessions program.