Reapplication for AROTC scholarship

GAMCJROTCMOM

5-Year Member
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Apr 6, 2010
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My daughter received the 4-year AROTC federal scholarship for last year, gave it up to go to a different college and was given a 4-year school scholarship instead. She never contracted and struggled her freshman year and lost her scholarship. Does anyone know the likelihood of getting the federal scholarship back if she were to reapply? She's doing much better in classes this year and really wants to get back into AROTC but her GPA suffered due to her freshman year.
 
AROTC scholarship is NOT given back. There is no such thing as a reapplication.

If she is interested in ROTC scholarship, the only way she can get is if she first joins the ROTC program, work her butt off and shine through and through. Then she may get campus scholarship for 3 year or 2 year.

However, the odds of this happening are not great. Due to the budget cut, campus scholarship is becoming very rare. Even if there is one available, from the ROTC battalion's perspective, there are cadets who joined as a freshman without scholarship and worked their butt off already, so it's unlikely that the battalion officers will give it to your daughter as opposed to those who already showed dedication and proved themselves in the program last year or two. Besides, they will look at her GPA, in all likelihood, and that would be a problem for your daughter. My son's good friend is a die hard Army officer wanna be. he did not get a scholarship. He joined the ROTC program any way. Worked extremely hard to prove himself, hoping to get a campus scholarship. However, after two years, he has given up. Even though he was a perfect cadet in all other ways, he was not academically on top of the game, and his GPA (cumulative for two years was below 3.0) and was told by the cadre more or less that there is no chance for him get a scholarship.l


But fundamentally, I have to ask you this: Is your daughter looking for AROTC scholarship just for money? If so, this does not bode well. Though on the web site, they say, it's 5-7 hours commitment a week, if she wants to shine, it will take a lot more commitment that this. If she had a problem keeping up with the academic work, will she be able to dedicate a lot of resource (time, energy) to ROTC and keep up with her academic work? Please note that ROTC also has a min GPA requirement.

Watching what my son is going through (gladly and enthusiastically, but still a lot of commitment), AROTC scholarship should not be pursued for purely financial reasons. It may blow up on the kid's face. Beside, you are aware of the service requirement, right?

If your daughter is genuinely interested in pursuing a military career, then she should just join ROTC with or without scholarship. Then, she will have to work her butt off to make up for that low academic performance during her first year. Cumulative GPA counts for 40% of the total scores which determine whether she will be allowed to serve on the active duty or not. If not, she is going to be on reserve. The last time I checked, the average GPA of cadets who managed to get active service was something like 3.2-3.3. It won't surprise me at all if this goes up for the class of 2014 (I assume this is your daughter's class): the writing is on the wall that the competition to get the active duty slot will intensify going forward for a variety of macro economical and political reasons.

Sorry to be such a party pooper, but I had to give you honest assessment of the situation.
 
Last edited:
forgot to add the last and most important point:

My input is just layman's input. The best thing she can do is to go meet the PMS of the ROTC unit in her current school, and present her current situation, and ask him/her to give her a candid and realistic assessment for her chances.
 
Thanks for your input. She was in ROTC and plans to continue, whether she gets a scholarship or not. The scholarship is not about the money, she's always wanted a military career. Hopefully she can prove herself to her cadre and win back the campus scholarship. She's certainly not the first freshman to have messed up their first year. Good luck to your son!


AROTC scholarship is NOT given back. There is no such thing as a reapplication.

If she is interested in ROTC scholarship, the only way she can get is if she first joins the ROTC program, work her butt off and shine through and through. Then she may get campus scholarship for 3 year or 2 year.

However, the odds of this happening are not great. Due to the budget cut, campus scholarship is becoming very rare. Even if there is one available, from the ROTC battalion's perspective, there are cadets who joined as a freshman without scholarship and worked their butt off already, so it's unlikely that the battalion officers will give it to your daughter as opposed to those who already showed dedication and proved themselves in the program last year or two. Besides, they will look at her GPA, in all likelihood, and that would be a problem for your daughter. My son's good friend is a die hard Army officer wanna be. he did not get a scholarship. He joined the ROTC program any way. Worked extremely hard to prove himself, hoping to get a campus scholarship. However, after two years, he has given up. Even though he was a perfect cadet in all other ways, he was not academically on top of the game, and his GPA (cumulative for two years was below 3.0) and was told by the cadre more or less that there is no chance for him get a scholarship.l


But fundamentally, I have to ask you this: Is your daughter looking for AROTC scholarship just for money? If so, this does not bode well. Though on the web site, they say, it's 5-7 hours commitment a week, if she wants to shine, it will take a lot more commitment that this. If she had a problem keeping up with the academic work, will she be able to dedicate a lot of resource (time, energy) to ROTC and keep up with her academic work? Please note that ROTC also has a min GPA requirement.

Watching what my son is going through (gladly and enthusiastically, but still a lot of commitment), AROTC scholarship should not be pursued for purely financial reasons. It may blow up on the kid's face. Beside, you are aware of the service requirement, right?

If your daughter is genuinely interested in pursuing a military career, then she should just join ROTC with or without scholarship. Then, she will have to work her butt off to make up for that low academic performance during her first year. Cumulative GPA counts for 40% of the total scores which determine whether she will be allowed to serve on the active duty or not. If not, she is going to be on reserve. The last time I checked, the average GPA of cadets who managed to get active service was something like 3.2-3.3. It won't surprise me at all if this goes up for the class of 2014 (I assume this is your daughter's class): the writing is on the wall that the competition to get the active duty slot will intensify going forward for a variety of macro economical and political reasons.

Sorry to be such a party pooper, but I had to give you honest assessment of the situation.
 
I agree with a lot of educateme's post, but would add if your daughter is motivated to stay in ROTC and receive some financial assistance to consider joining the National Guard or Army Reserves. The process is different than the AROTC National scholarship process(my son was not awarded one for the current incoming freshman class) but it does allow for some aid, the opportunity to serve their country and possibly still commission active duty when they graduate. The PMS at her school will be able to discuss this option with her. It is working for my son and many of the incoming cadets at his school.

Good luck to you and your daughter. No, she is far from the first or last to have a rough freshman year and perhaps being able to turn it around will show them her ability to recover from adversity - a great personal trait for anyone, office or not.
 
She was in ROTC and plans to continue, whether she gets a scholarship or not. The scholarship is not about the money, she's always wanted a military career. Hopefully she can prove herself to her cadre and win back the campus scholarship. She's certainly not the first freshman to have messed up their first year. Good luck to your son!

thanks for taking my input graciously. Good luck to your daughter. When she reaches her goal by working extra hard, what happened during her first year may turn out to be a blessing in disguise!
 
My daughter received the 4-year AROTC federal scholarship for last year, gave it up to go to a different college and was given a 4-year school scholarship instead. She never contracted and struggled her freshman year and lost her scholarship. Does anyone know the likelihood of getting the federal scholarship back if she were to reapply? She's doing much better in classes this year and really wants to get back into AROTC but her GPA suffered due to her freshman year.

educateme is correct about the scholarship applications.

I would add only one thing, it was mentioned that the average GPA for AD is around 3.2, that is correct. One thing to remember is that GPA is an average. While GPA counts for 40% it is not the only factor in the OMS, 60% comes from LDAC, PT, and PMS as well as Leadership qualities. A cadet at my son's school finished his junior year with a 2.4 GPA, he did however receive an E, Recondo, and Top 5 at LDAC, He was not very high on the Battalion OML but with everything added together he was about 20% above the AD cutoff line this year. Your daughter needs to work to be the best she can in all areas, if she does that she can overcome a lower GPA. One other thing, the scores for GPA are done on a curve, for example a 3.2 does not just equate to 32 points on the OMS.

Good luck to your daughter
 
Chances are very slim she could get a campus scholarship back, if they even give them back. Her best bet is to continue to do well this year and contract as a Junior. She will then collect the stipend and be locked into service.

As for the SMP with Guard/Reserves, it is a great gig, but don't enlist without being fully prepared to serve your contract as an enlisted soldier. People don't realize it, but things happen over the course of college and regardless if you're in school or not, you will be required to fulfill your contract requirements.
 
Chances are very slim she could get a campus scholarship back, if they even give them back. Her best bet is to continue to do well this year and contract as a Junior. She will then collect the stipend and be locked into service.

As for the SMP with Guard/Reserves, it is a great gig, but don't enlist without being fully prepared to serve your contract as an enlisted soldier. People don't realize it, but things happen over the course of college and regardless if you're in school or not, you will be required to fulfill your contract requirements.

Bull,

I would appreciate if you could give more detail about your last statement(things happen over the course...regardless if you're in school or not, you will be required to fulfill your contract...). I know many states have differences in their guards and I'm not at all aware of the Reserves. DS is Ohio guard and is currently non-deployable until attending BCT(June 2012)and will contract upon returning to school in August/Sept which keeps him non-deployable until graduation in 2015. As long as he stays in school and doesn't do anything to lose his standing to contract SMP(ie injury or law violation, has already been DodMERB qualified but a new injury could be problematic for any cadet prior to commission). Thanks for sharing any information you've gained - if not on the this thread(we're a little OT) message me.
 
It really wasn't pertaining to your son, because he will always be non-deployable, however, many people join SMP, don't realize they won't be able to contract til atleast Sophomore year and things happen. I've seen guys sign up for SMP, get 27 credit hours and get pulled out of school because their unit is deploying. I've seen people join SMP and have no intentions to want to serve as an enlisted soldier and just do it for benefits, things happen before they are able to contract and then they're stuck enlisted.

All I was trying to say was that if you do something (Enlist for SMP, Enlist to get a slot to West Point), always be prepared to serve that contract out, because you are not guarenteed SMP or the commission, but the Army is guarenteed the contract you signed.
 
-Bull- said:
All I was trying to say was that if you do something (Enlist for SMP, Enlist to get a slot to West Point), always be prepared to serve that contract out, because you are not guarenteed SMP or the commission, but the Army is guarenteed the contract you signed.

Sound advice.

Unfortunately many times people try to game the system and never read the fine print. The fine print is there, don't play the game that it won't happen to me because it never happened to anyone else we know. Military members serve at the needs of the military, and things can change.

Nobody in May 2001 ever saw 9-11 coming, and it changed the Army's needs for yrs.

Unless you are psychic expect they can pull out the "DID YOU SIGN ON THIS LINE?" card.

GAMCJROTCMOM,

You are 1000% correct she is not the 1st nor will she be the last to screw up her freshman yr. As others stated it will be an uphill battle to get it back due to budgetary reasons expected within the DOD.

However, one thing I would say as an AFROTC scholarship Mom with a DS that has Merit too from the school, many people do not realize that they may have different gpa min requirements. Our DS's at his college is set at 3.2, and I believe AFROTC is 2.8 (don't follow it because it is below the schools requirement). So, had he done what your DD did he could have lost his school scholarship even with a 3.1 gpa.

That means she still has a chance to pull it out for her OML when it comes to competing as an MSIV. Now on the flipside, if she was even below the min for the AROTC scholarship, she needs to buckle down the next few yrs to get that gpa up for the OML. GPA is a part of the OML.

Last question.
GAMCJROTCMOM said:
She's doing much better in classes this year and really wants to get back into AROTC but her GPA suffered due to her freshman year.

GAMCJROTCMOM said:
She was in ROTC and plans to continue

Both of these statements to me infer she is at the same school and was in AROTC, but is no longer in AROTC, is she in AROTC now or not?

If she was in AROTC and is still at the same school, I would strongly suggest she talked to her AROTC unit because they are truly the people that know how she racks and stacks in their BN.

We are all here to help and assist, but our advice is not coming down from her BN when it comes to chancing.

As hard as it is to read, the fact is she is now going to compete on a different level, and mark my words there will be others trying that route too. The BN is going to look at it from a whole candidate perspective.

People tend to forget that the AD members that work in ROTC are AD. They, like any other AD member get reviewed and promoted based on their success/failure. Their career is tied to the success of the unit, which is tied to the cadet. In the end they are not going to sugar coat anything to a cadet because it can hurt them if they do!

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/02/army_rotc_awards_021510w/

That Award is a feather in the cap for the AD members, because now on their OPR or PRF they can say that out of the hundreds of AROTC units across the nation, they were recognized as the top 8.

Cadets believe it or not are connected to the AD world more than anyone ever realizes.

OBTW, it also ties into why some units are harder than others. Getting nationally recognized usually equates into more competitive/selective units because now they have bragging rights. The BN for 2010 is going to fight to be on the 2011 list. They are not going to turn a blind eye.

Not saying that BN's not on lists are easier or turn a blind eye; I am saying why some act differently than others. Which in turn brings us all the way back to what every parent with a child in any ROTC program says to HS students...WHEN YOU VISIT THE CAMPUS, VISIT THE UNIT! They all have personalities and you may not fit their personality!

Good luck
 
A little more explanation about the curve please

One other thing, the scores for GPA are done on a curve, for example a 3.2 does not just equate to 32 points on the OMS.

I'm sure someone posted a few months back that they thought 3.2 did equal 32 points out of 100 so could you clarify this please?
 
Problems with forums usually are the thread diverts.

Paradoxer,

I would start a new thread for this question because I would bet many lurkers and new posters have the same question.

We are all here to help and assist. It is hard to retrieve an answer if it is in the thread that was diverted from the OP's original question. i.e the reason you stated:
I'm sure someone posted a few months back that they thought 3.2 did equal 32 points out of 100 so could you clarify this please?

It gets lost in threads...look at the January 4 AROTC board thread. It went from results to schools, to what ifs to update status of cadet plans to what type of boots and now is at an argument about something that happened at CTLT.

Think about those that follow. Your question is not inane, post it so others like you can find the answer. If you were a newcomer would you assume the answer for the OMS was hidden on page 2 of Reapplication for scholarship?
 
It really wasn't pertaining to your son, because he will always be non-deployable, however, many people join SMP, don't realize they won't be able to contract til atleast Sophomore year and things happen. I've seen guys sign up for SMP, get 27 credit hours and get pulled out of school because their unit is deploying. I've seen people join SMP and have no intentions to want to serve as an enlisted soldier and just do it for benefits, things happen before they are able to contract and then they're stuck enlisted.

All I was trying to say was that if you do something (Enlist for SMP, Enlist to get a slot to West Point), always be prepared to serve that contract out, because you are not guarenteed SMP or the commission, but the Army is guarenteed the contract you signed.

OT, as Pima, pointed out, but I just wanted to thank you for replying. Completely agree, if you do not wish to serve(enlisted, officer or whatever capacity the military might decide you have value)you should not sign ANY contract with them. Anyone pursuing SMP should make sure they understand the contract before signing.
 
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