Wouldn't that depend on the individual officer, not the source of commissioning?
Environment plays a pretty significant role in how a person matures, don't you think?
those from traditional universities graduate with more maturity and well-rounded. I can say this from serving nine-years active duty under both ring-knockers and rotc grads.
Interesting observation.
First, it is important to underscore the fact that this is your observation based on the officers you were exposed to, which is a limited set of data from which to draw a broad conclusion! (not that I doubt you).
Second, this is a fascinating topic. When an 18 yr. goes to college, I suppose there are three basic categories for a mid:
1) Live at home, go to college, participate in NROTC
2) Go OFF to college, participate in NROTC, separating the daily contact with parental authority, little formal structure and very few constraints on choices and behavior, and inviduating and self-governing.
3) Go OFF to USNA, replacing Parental Authority with Military Authority, with lots of structure and many constraints on choices and behavior, with less individuation and self-governing.
These three types of experiences will naturally affect maturity in the student in different ways.
I wonder if the third category, the USxA, doesn't aid is some areas of maturity, but ****** in others. By this I mean USNA will aid in the mature ability to follow direction, take joint responsibility for oneself AND those in one's formal group,, fully understand the link between actions and consequences, manage the scarce resource called TIME efficiently, learn to defer immediate gratification, etc.
On the other hand, there isn't a lot of freedom to explore some of the things the traditional college student can -- unusual academic curriculum, free hours, free weekends, partying in town, drug, drinking and fraternal societies, exposure to deadbeats, anti-country morons, drugheads, extremely self-serving people, etc.
So, for me your comment about maturity needs clarifying. What type of maturity? Does one emerge from NROTC at a traditional campus with any kind of understanding and ability to navigate among civilians better than one who emerges from the Naval Academy?
I suspect some forms of maturity are better developed at the Academy, and some at NROTC. Since they are such different environments, it isn't reasonable to assume these young mids would mature in the same way.
I think this discussion would sound very similar to one about very strict parenting vs. less strict parenting, and which ultimately leads to a more mature adult.