My daughter went through this last year, not air force, but Army. The similarities is her scholarship was for nursing, a separate pot of money, and she wanted to change to a different major which made her not eligible for her current scholarship. She first and foremost, before she did anything official with the school, she talked to her Lt. Colonel, it was Spring of her sophomore year. It took months for him to make the decision to "recommend" her for a scholarship change from nursing to a line scholarship. He said he supported her in theory even when she first talked to him, but wanted to see that she was still going to finish the semester in good academic standing and wanted her to be 100% sure before he started the paperwork. One of the things she had to do was submit a new 104R, which shows what classes she is taking for all 4 years towards graduation. Although everything has been submitted she has not heard anything official as an answer from the brigade, and she knew that will not happen until after school starts in the fall. We are crossing our fingers and she is returning to school in the fall regardless. Our understanding from her contract, is even if they accept it, she might face a one semester administrative suspension of scholarship - all the way to the possibility of not having her scholarship transferred at all. She was initially not allowed to register for the fall semester with everyone else, not for nursing or her new major, until he made the final decision and started the process. She did register before leaving school and was able to get enough classes for a full schedule. She decided on her own to take some summer classes in her new major, just to get started. As her Mom, I think she was also making sure she made the right decision since they were upper division courses in her new major. Good to report that she loved it! As far as not registering, it was a hard wait. But when he finally allowed her to move forward this is what he told her when he decided to recommend a transfer of scholarship; 1. You handled yourself well during this process and did things the right way 2. You are in good academic standing 3. You are a good cadet in good standing. 4. You showed me on paper that you can still graduate in 2020 with the new major (no extra time will be granted). So basically, if you really want to change AND you know you want to be an officer in the Air Force, and would like the benefit of a scholarship, then you are going to have to start that conversation. From every conversation with her adviser (Army) and also with the LTC, she got verbal support but was also reminded that she needs to do what is best for her, but also know that it might include consequences, especially financially.
I will tell you we went into the process with the belief that it couldn't happen, even from conversations on this forum we thought for sure her best outcome would be a non-scholarship cadet, allowed to continue and not have to pay back the last two years if she completed her contract as an Officer. To have the strong possibility she will have a scholarship, even if she loses a semester is really a great outcome. By the way, I know this is Army and not AF, but she was also told by her nurse adviser from the brigade that it actually is not a problem for the brigade (aka the body that actually approves the change), it is up to the recommendation of the LTC, so with that, knowing she has been recommended for a scholarship change, we are really hopeful.
Good luck to you, and please keep us posted.
