NROTC Scholarships / Advanced Standing

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tibreaker

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How hard is it to get a NROTC scholarship while in college? How hard is it to get into Advanced Standing? Would something like a 3.0 in a STEM major be good enough? Thanks.
 
tibreaker said:
How hard is it to get a NROTC scholarship while in college? How hard is it to get into Advanced Standing? Would something like a 3.0 in a STEM major be good enough? Thanks.
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It varies every year. For class of 2013 there were none and my sons class 2014 there were I believe 175. It has been higher in more recent years and really depends on the anticipated needs of 0-1's. With that said, the less offered the higher your stats need to be. My DS received a 2 year side load, there were no 3 years available his year. He was at or near the top of his unit and at the time a math major. He actually switched to finance during the process(against my advise) and still received the scholarship being tier 3 but he had a 3.7gpa. I have never seen any hard number on the advanced standings per year. Best of luck
 
Varies every year depending upon needs. My son is Marine Option, but he had some Navy Option college program friends with high ACT/SATE scores and GPAs not get picked up. I think they were looking for nuke officers this year.
 
Okay thanks for the responses. Could somebody respond with regards to the difficulty of getting the scholarship in college?
 
tibreaker said:
Okay thanks for the responses. Could somebody respond with regards to the difficulty of getting the scholarship in college?
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Nobody can really respond definitively to the difficulty. Too many factors are involved -- and as mentioned things change each year. I will say there are fewer opportunities than with the initial outside scholarship. Sideloads imply filling voids in a need officer positions to fill.

Chances will obviously increase with your success as a college program midshipman. Realistically, not every 4 year scholarship recipient keeps their scholarship after the 1st year.

Another thing to keep in mind is the effect of drawdown and reorganization of the armed services. As alluded to earlier, the "numbers" are all dependent upon the needs of the naval service. The numbers determine odds/difficulty.

My son's starting class of mids is less than half the size it was to begin with -- and a lot of that was due to the fact that sideloads weren't available.
 
So is it easier to get a 4 year or a 2 or 3 year scholarship? Should I even bother with NROTC if there are such few sideload scholarships offered?
 
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If you want a commission in the Navy, pursue all options. In other words, don't give up on any.

1) Reapply for 4 year scholarship if still qualified
2) Enroll as college program mid, do well and get endorsed by the PNS -- and get the chance to compete for a sideload scholarship
3) Stay enrolled as college program midshipman and compete for advanced standing
4) If these don't work, you really haven't lost anything. You can still apply for another commissioning source.

The key is what your goal is -- a commission in the Navy. If you get a scholarship, all the better.

Having said all that, don't let the Navy scholarship be your only scholarship path. Compete for others. Regardless of path, you'll need a college degree for a commission.
 
tibreaker said:
So is it easier to get a 4 year or a 2 or 3 year scholarship? Should I even bother with NROTC if there are such few sideload scholarships offered?
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Tibreaker....I'm struggling with what you are asking this forum to answer. If you don't bother to try, you will be GUARANTEED to fail.
You are correct. NROTC scholarships are tough to get. My DS tried to get into USNA and did not get in. My DS also applied for an NROTC/MO scholarship for his Plan B Out of State SMC and did not win it. He was pretty crushed.

DS was so confident that he would get the NROTC scholarship that he did NOT TRY to apply for an Army ROTC scholarship. (ran out of time)

Instead, he enrolled to his Plan C college as a non-contract AROTC cadet. He worked hard, got good grades and....he won a 3 1/2 year AD scholarship by the end of his third month in the Battalion.

Getting back to your question, I don't think anyone knows just how many NROTC 2 or 3 year tickets will be available. I recommend that if you want to win it, get in as a college programmer, as Rocatlin says and give it your best shot!

Good luck.
 
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So can I apply for a scholarship even if I'm not in NROTC? I guess what I'm really asking is if I could start out doing AFROTC or AROTC and still apply for and get a 2 or 3 year navy scholarship?
 
That seems to be a backward way to do it. If you have your mind set on Navy, go Navy College Program. Go to college and enroll in the program you want. Don't try to straddle the fence.

My DS went ALL IN to the AROTC program. He then got a call from the Marine PLC recruiter to do PLC/OCS while in AROTC. He turned them down because he mentally was committed to the Army ROTC Battalion. If you start AF or Army and then apply for Navy? It may have been done before, but it strikes me as the harder way to go.
 
tibreaker said:
So can I apply for a scholarship even if I'm not in NROTC? I guess what I'm really asking is if I could start out doing AFROTC or AROTC and still apply for and get a 2 or 3 year navy scholarship?
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What is your end goal?

If it's Navy, then go all Navy. The steps I listed in my previous post are that valid path.

1) Reapply for 4 year scholarship if still qualified
2) Enroll as college program mid, do well and get endorsed by the PNS -- and get the chance to compete for a sideload scholarship
3) Stay enrolled as college program midshipman and compete for advanced standing
4) If these don't work, you really haven't lost anything. You can still apply for another commissioning source.
 
That's exactly my problem gokings814. I'm going to be a cadet at a SMC but I don't know what branch I want to go into. Therefore I don't know if I want to go all in with the Navy since I am guaranteed a commission with the Army do to my university's SMC status. I am completely open to Army, Air Force, and Navy. So if it is a long-shot to even get commissioned via NROTC then it makes me wonder if I should even bother with Navy and if I should just stick with deciding between Army and Air Force. Anyways, any advise regarding my situation is appreciated.
 
I agree with everyone else, Navy all the way. If my DS can win a sideload then you can too. I would add it's easier to go Navy to Army ROTC than vice versa I know some guys who have gone that route when they knew they wouldn't get a sideload or advanced standing..
 
I would add, all NROTC scholarships, including sideload, are national competitions.
 
And another thing. If army is on your radar then I would think Marine Corps should be too. If all else fails, the Marine Corps had a Platoon Leader Course you could pursue as plan C or D or whatever. Often referred to as PLC. Google it.
 
It sounds like you want to serve as an officer, but are having a difficult time figuring out where.

Where are your strengths? This is an over generalization, but the Air Force and Navy are the more "technically" oriented branches. Again a generalization.

How do you feel about water? The Navy and Marine Corps will obviously have greater opportunity to spend on floats.

Do you want to fly? If so, what? How much? Each branch has it's own possibilities. Navy and Marine Corps do less ground based operations. The Army does more rotary wing flying. The Air Force runs the gamut from drones (more and more) to sitting in a cockpit in various types of aircraft.

Do you want to be a grunt, tanker, or cannon cocker? Only two real choices -- Marine Corps and Army if one is talking about pure infantry operations. The same for other combat arms like tracked vehicles and artillery.

My advice since you aren't passionate about any branch: Play to your strengths and select the branch you feel you'd be most successful at.
 
I am with everybody else. This is the time you should do some intense research regarding career options.

College is not 40+ hrs a week, 52 weeks a year. You get to decide where you will live the next 4 yrs and what your major will be. Once in the military the cliche Service before Self is true. Just because they have a base or post somewhere really great with your top career pick, like Hawaii, Germany, Florida, etc, does not mean they aren't going to send you to Korea, Oklahoma or Texas with your number 3 pick.

I would also add that the AFROTC program also has that make or break point like NROTC. As a sophomore you would compete for a slot to attend Summer Field Training (SFT). If not selected than your chances are great that they will dis-enroll you from AFROTC.

I do not believe anyone thinks that you should def. know which branch or career field you want right now, but I think you need to really think about it. My DDs friend went to an SMC as an AROTC scholarship cadet, she was sure she wanted Army when she was in HS, by Thanksgiving she already informed the unit that she was dropping out of AROTC after the end of the fall semester and would be enrolling in NROTC for spring semester. Her vision of what AROTC would be like and reality did not meet up for her once she got there.
~ She attended VT, Corps of Cadets there live in a separate dorm compared to the traditional students. There they will socialize with kids going through all of the different ROTC programs. Thus, you do see different views among your peers.
~ Obviously she lost her scholarship for spring semester, but as others have stated, she put her nose to the grindstone and applied for the NROTC scholarship, which she received starting her fall semester. She is now an O1 in the Navy.

My point is you can change your mind, but the idea that you will just enter in either the AF or AROTC program and apply for an NROTC scholarship is to me not realistic or fair to those branches.
1. JMPO, but I see it as not all in, and instead keeping one foot out the door before you even start if you enter saying I want Navy, but I am going to go Army or AF and if I can get an NROTC scholarship than I will leave.
2. If you are looking at a scholarship perspective while in ROTC than you need to ask yourself one question. Why should the NROTC Commander support you for an NROTC scholarship (In College Scholarship Program) over a mid in the NROTC program when you are in a different ROTC program?
~ The mid in the NROTC program has been proving their abilities to the unit since the day they arrived. You are in another unit, thus, you have some unknown factors.
~ The mid that went NROTC with no scholarship went all in before they started, knowing they would not have that security like an HSSP recipient.

There is always a caveat, like my DDs friend, but again, she was all in for AROTC from the get go, it was only when she had more exposure to the programs and her career opportunities did she realize the Army was not the right fit. She was mature for her age (18) and before approaching NROTC, she went to her AROTC leadership to discuss her desires to leave. They respected that her decision was not emotional, it was a well thought out idea regarding what she intended to do upon commissioning. They knew through her dedication to the Corps and AROTC, plus her maturity that it would be best to 1000% support her decision. That meant they went the extra step and contacted their counterpart at the NROTC unit to personally vouch for her character and abilities.

Sorry, for the novella, but I hope it also gives you some food for thought.
 
Thanks for all of the responses. But really quick, can somebody tell me the Air Force process of commissioning? Can you be selected for field training even if you're not on scholarship? Thanks again.
 
AFROTC will "mask" if a cadet is on scholarship or not. In other words, the board has no clue whatsoever regarding that aspect, they do not take that into consideration at all when they select cadets.
~ If selected and when you return as a junior you will be contracted. You will receive a stipend, but do not confuse that with now getting HQ to pay for your tuition like the scholarship AS300s.

Overall for AFROTC only about 16-18% are offered a scholarship via the HSSP program.

I am not going to lie, many of the HSSP recipients do get selected for SFT, but that has a lot more to do with other aspects. I.E., an HSSP cadet typically will also have college merit. College merit scholarships usually have a baseline of 3.0 or 3.2 to retain the scholarship, ROTC is 2.5 min. If they need the merit to attend the college they will carry that 3.0+, not the ROTC min.
~ Just putting it out there if you hear or read they have a higher selection rate than non-scholarship, it would be time to do some more digging to see if it is because their cgpa is also tied to college merit.
 
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