Klone,
I would not agree with that at all, at least for the AF.
Yes, they expect you to earn a graduate degree, but the fact is very, very few are sent to a graduate school during their career. Think in the number of less than 25%, and more like 10-15%. The majority complete their grad school fulfillment using the education department on base using tuition assistance. Every base has several universities associated with them, ERAU, UMD, Webster, etc.
~ I think you are misunderstanding what they meant. They meant to make rank, they expect you to have a grad degree. However, you heard that they will send you to grad school at some point which is false.
~~ Grad school is "masked" until at least your O4 board, but historically it has been masked until the O5 board. IE @14/15 years into your career. The twist is for O4 Professional Military Education (PME) in residence selection, grad school will not be masked, thus, most officers try to get it done before their O4 board so they can compete for that school.
~~~ Bullet was rated, and I can count on 2 hands the amount of people we knew throughout his career that was sent to grad school in residence. Most will do it straight out of college, because stepping out during your career can be a problem from a career progression aspect. While you are a student, your peers are gaining more experience in operational leadership positions.
Secondly, the OP is not looking for Grad school, but for Medical school, which is not a year long program. It is several years. The ED they are looking at is akin to applying for a JAG ED. It is for a specific career field that they will not have upon completing that degree. It is not as if they were going nursing and decide they want to go ED to get a Master degree in health administration.
For the OP, from the AF view they hand out specific ROTC scholarships, such as nursing because manpower at HQ has decided from long term planning that they will be short on nurses for the next 5 years. The scholarship is to recruit those degrees. This can be a double edge sword. You may believe you have a higher chance of getting the scholarship, but you also maybe now tied for the 4 years upon active duty to that career. Plus, if you decide while in the program that this is not for you, you will need HQs approval to convert the scholarship. Chances maybe high that they say no.
~ Remember that ROTC grads can wait several months before they go AD. The commitment owed clock will not start until you show up at your 1st assignment.
~~ You will actually have 3 dates tied to you. The commission date is your longevity date (pay/retirement). They will than take your report date, and commission date to find an avg date for making rank(line number). IE my DS commissioned in May. He reported in Sept. When you look at DFAS pay chart. He gets the bump in pay for years, but due to the averaging for rank, his date is July for making rank. SA commissioned officers are considered AD immediately upon graduation. They basically have only 1 date...graduation.
Finally, I agree that it is not a slam dunk. There was a poster here that their DD did the AFROTC nursing scholarship. I believe she commissioned in 13. Her 1st week at Brooks for training, they were told that the AF is starting to step away from ADAF nursing, instead they were trending towards more contracted nurses. They would always have ADAF nurses, but from a fiscal cost, it was cheaper to contract them. Mainly because they don't have to move them, nor have to pay out retirement bennies. PCSing a member costs a lot of money. Just the moving truck within the continental US could be 10K. Sending them from Germany to California is insanely expensive (car, airfare, movers, dislocation allowance, travel allowance, etc).
Good luck. I am with the others if you want to be a doc, than don't go nursing. I would probably try for a degree in bio-chem. I would suggest if you want a scholarship from AF or Navy you look at what major will be considered STEM/TECH. My DS is not ROTC, but he is a bio-chem major and his intention is to work in a lab for pharmaceutical companies. This may allow you to work in the medical field in the military, but not necessarily as a nurse, probably more in the administration field if you do not get an ED.
