ROTC Consulting

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xray328

5-Year Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2015
Messages
189
Has anyone had any experiences with them? Looks like they charge $2500 and guarantee scholarship or your money back.

rotcconsulting.com
 
xray328 said:
Has anyone had any experiences with them? Looks like they charge $2500 and guarantee scholarship or your money back.

rotcconsulting.com
Click to expand...
Dunno.....but, I’ll say that you shouldn’t need it. App is very straightforward and the questionnaire should be done ALONE, and specifies as much. DS (4-yr winner) got a great little interview book for WP off of Amazon, which also worked splendidly for MOC and AROTC interviews. I’m of the mind that a consultant is not needed.
 
LTC Kirkland is a great guy. I am not going to debate the benefits of his program. He is a WP grad, former PMS and has a wealth of knowledge.

I agree with @THmom that you can do it on your own. She has the absolute best avatar on the SAF so she is right most all of the time!
 
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These forums have individuals who are just as qualified (if not more so, for example @MullenLE in regards to medical) and will provide the same information for free. Essay editing/interview prep can easily be accomplished by teachers or any other professionals in your life.

Looking at their FAQ, it seems they have to select you as a client. I would not be surprised if they only select clients that already have a great chance of getting a scholarship.

Additionally, their point about calling individual units for "information of specific programs that a candidate would not otherwise be able to determine" is complete bs. In my experience every recruiting LT or ROO is completely willing to share information with potential candidates. Additionally, the individual unit doesn't decide whether you get a scholarship, so I'm not sure how that's relevant anyways.

The ROTC application is not a secretive process. Every step is laid out very clearly, and there are answers online for essentially every question you could possibly have. I was able to go through the entire process with zero military background and outside help, you can too.

Just my two cents.
 
I’ll do it for free. Essays dont matter because no one reads them. The consultants cant make you an eagle scout or class president. A winning file takes 3+ years to build. We’ve interviewed studs on the PMS interview but they didn’t get a scholarship because the arent SAL qualified. Marginal interviews have won because they are strong SAL. The boards are a crap shoot. Hit me up.
 
We looked into a consultant for SA admissions. He was an SA grad himself, was well spoken and very knowledgeable. His client list was full, so rather than take DD on, he provided a pro bono 60-minute consultation. He had some very good things to say. But many of those things were pretty much a done deal, as DD was late in her junior year. And many of those things I’ve read on this forum — and have myself shared here, knowing the gouge came from a very reliable source.

So knowing what I know now, I’d agree with others here that you don’t need one. Much of your package is already baked — it’s called the first three years of high school. Nearly 100% of what you need to know about the application process can be found on ROTC and SA websites; be sure to read every link, dropdown, tab and page. And there’s very good knowledge here on SAF, especially if you focus on inputs of certain people who have a reputation for knowing the straight scoop (beware the posers and the blind leading the blind).

If $2500 isn’t a big deal for you, more power to you. But I personally would save the money and just crank up my own research chops and attention to detail.
 
My neighbor used one (not sure if it was the one listed above) for her daughter (my daughter's friend, a year older), who got a 4 year scholarship (NROTC). When my daughter was applying to colleges the next year, our neighbor gave the consultant's number to my daughter and urged/pressured her to call. At the time, my daughter wasn't interested in ROTC, so did not call.

She ended up applying on her own while a freshman in college and got a 3 year (just commissioned in May).
 
xray328 said:
Has anyone had any experiences with them? Looks like they charge $2500 and guarantee scholarship or your money back.

rotcconsulting.com
Click to expand...
Don't go with them; they may be helpful but there are much easier, much cheaper ways to increase your chances of an ROTC scholarship. At most, buying the book Amazon will help (see here and here).
 
"CAVEAT EMPTOR = the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made." (GOOGLE)


***DoDMERB, from purely the medical perspective of applying to SAs and ROTC scholarships, will remain detached, neutral, and will not opine on individual private/incorporated/other, for profit enterprises.

I will state emphatically, that the only DoD authoritative sources for accurate/current information in these application processes are: SA Admissions personnel; ROTC HQs (National 4 or 3 year guarantee); and ROOs (Recruiting Operations Officers, Scholarship Enrollment Officers, etc); ROTC Cadre; and DoDMERB personnel. All these services are...FREE OF CHARGE...to all applicants!!!

This remains a free country, at least for now - Applicants have the freedom to choose the above; navigate the processes on their own; or pay for services that advertise application(s) assistance. As many of the postings above indicate/imply, the FREE option is always available. But there is NO PROHIBITION on folks that want to pay, or pay exorbitant amounts, for a drink at a public NO COST water fountain.

You can pay for a gym membership, a personal trainer, or conduct your own physical fitness workouts. Individual choice and Caveat Emptor.

Applicants; potential applicants; parents applying good oversight/assistance principles; parents who live viscerally through their children; and any and all other groups associated to this target audience, can pick and choose their own approaches. :wiggle:
 
$2,500 back if you don’t receive a scholarship offer. Interesting guarantee/promise.

Never considered using one at our house. Didn’t know they existed to be honest. Just for fun, after DS #3 applied, he filled out a mass emailing questionnaire that gauged the probability of an appointment received. That was pretty amusing.
 
STRONG endorsement of ROTC consulting. My DD was a top candidate. We reached out to Kirkland her sophomore year, but yes, much of her track was "baked in". Where consulting really helps is with interview prep. For the AF ROTC (which counts interviews as 40% of score, really high), ROTC consulting did more than 3 hours of live interviewing, allowing my DD to practice with excellent interviewers over and over again. She got live feedback on what was good and what needed to be improved.

I think without it, she had a great shot at a Type II AF scholarship, which pays 18k/yr. But this helped push her into that top 5% that gets a Type I scholarship, which pays 60k/yr +. So 42k/yr x 4 years = $168,000. Um, yes, this consulting is absolutely worth paying $2,000 for.

My advice is to employ them early as you can and if you're trying for ROTC + SAs, do all their interview prep, then hopefully trigger the interview process for the scholarship that's your second favorite. Get the real life practice. Then carry over those interview skills to the other ROTC, then the SA interviews.

Worst case scenario is that ROTC consulting raises your interviewing skills, but not enough to the next level where you get extra $$$. But, if you are applying for 3 or more scholarships, the chances of your increased skills resulting in you making a cutoff point go up. My DS got more interviewing practice through all of this than I did my last year of college. Great life skill.
 
xray328 said:
Has anyone had any experiences with them? Looks like they charge $2500 and guarantee scholarship or your money back.

rotcconsulting.com
Click to expand...
I bought his book and it was very, very helpful. We used it extensively. I seriously considered the service. I was concerned about schedules.. DS was so busy; work, football, homework, ACT studying- when was he going to zoom with this crew?
I think the area he could be really helpful in is interviewing. I have intervened many for work so I thought I could tackle it. I set up the iPad and taped our interviews. Though it was like pulling teeth, we practiced and he improved. If this is not your strong suit could be valuable. A lot of people hire tutors for ACT/SAT testing... And this is a very valuable scholarship.

I will say these boards have been priceless. Where I needed guidance was “strategy”. - i.e. Submit for first board or wait until second, who to interview with, school choices, etc. I was going to say I was able to do this on my own through these boards.... but I don’t know if we were successful... ha!! Still waiting to hear.
 
DS used a local consultant starting spring of junior year, one who specializes in scholarships for ROTC/athletes. Original motivation was for interview prep (sorely needed) NOT for essay writing. Second biggest benefit was a 10 month process of meeting virtually (COVID) to search for colleges - they explored about 100, and narrowed down to 9. As we parents were butting heads with DS on developing a college list, this was a huge stress-relieving positive. As we were confident that DS was competitive for a scholarship, we were comfortable with an investment.
 
I agree with @LookinUpMom. The book was helpful. Again, it is all public knowledge that you don't need to pay for, but I was happy to pay the $15 (or whatever it was) for the convenience of having all the info in one place and in hard copy. And interview prep is an absolute necessity, so whatever works for you, but we didn't think it was necessary to pay for that. We also did prep at home, and I enlisted friends to "interview" him via Facetime to get him more comfortable with that medium. Potential interview topics are available in the book or online, but the benefit of the prep, especially this year, was getting DS comfortable interviewing virtually. He was comfortable talking to PMSs during our in-person visits, but virtual is awkward for anybody, especially 17-18 yos. Hopefully they all remain in person going forward.
 
I will jump in on this one with a little perspective. I think ROTC Consulting is similar to the Princeton Review. Do you need it - No, can it help you - absolutely. There are many tools at our disposal, some are free, others are expensive - some work and others do not. Kirkland definitely has done a good job in summarizing all of the action items in a single book/place. He is also a super nice guy and very helpful with the mechanics of the process.
 
There’s a lot of money to be made by preying on the insecurities of parents who are convinced that the college Junior attends is the indisputable key to his/her future success, reputation, happiness and wellbeing. A certain fellow in southern Californian made a boatload of money doing just that, with his advice being mainly in the realm of “use Photoshop to insert Junior’s head on the body of this athlete in an obscure sport.”

This is not, by any means, intended to disparage admissions coaches. They can and do serve a legitimate purpose. But yes, there’s a lot of money to be made when the topic is college admissions.
 
I don’t know if my son will be lucky as results for the second board have not been announced yet. I can tell you that we did use LTC Kirkland’s services.

Regardless of the outcome, LTC Kirkland provided exactly what his marketing materials indicate. The service provided was professional, friendly and honest.

In particular, the interview preparation was patient, unrushed and very thoughtful.

Each mock interview session is recorded and used as a tool to measure progress.

The transformation from the first session to the third session was dramatic.

When the time came for his official interview my son was relaxed and confident.

LTC Kirkland also gave us some “inside baseball” tips on how applications are reviewed and scored.

When my sons application was submitted I felt like the submittal was much better than it would have been if we tried to fly on our own.

Regardless of outcome I am completely satisfied with the value my son received
 
DS didn’t use them, but he did an excellent job on his podcasts. Look up ROTC consulting... he gives great counsel on the podcasts and is the antithesis of trying to drum up business.
 
MA Homeschool Dad said:
STRONG endorsement of ROTC consulting. My DD was a top candidate. We reached out to Kirkland her sophomore year, but yes, much of her track was "baked in". Where consulting really helps is with interview prep. For the AF ROTC (which counts interviews as 40% of score, really high), ROTC consulting did more than 3 hours of live interviewing, allowing my DD to practice with excellent interviewers over and over again. She got live feedback on what was good and what needed to be improved.

I think without it, she had a great shot at a Type II AF scholarship, which pays 18k/yr. But this helped push her into that top 5% that gets a Type I scholarship, which pays 60k/yr +. So 42k/yr x 4 years = $168,000. Um, yes, this consulting is absolutely worth paying $2,000 for.

My advice is to employ them early as you can and if you're trying for ROTC + SAs, do all their interview prep, then hopefully trigger the interview process for the scholarship that's your second favorite. Get the real life practice. Then carry over those interview skills to the other ROTC, then the SA interviews.

Worst case scenario is that ROTC consulting raises your interviewing skills, but not enough to the next level where you get extra $$$. But, if you are applying for 3 or more scholarships, the chances of your increased skills resulting in you making a cutoff point go up. My DS got more interviewing practice through all of this than I did my last year of college. Great life skill.
Click to expand...
Worth it,,,, DS 4 year AD winner,,#1, #2, #3 schools. I am prior service and have been either AD or worked in the "G" for 30 years. Considered my self quite able to navigate the process. The Colonel was a tremendous help.
 
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