I was recently accepted to a good school with an Army ROTC program on a generous financial aid package. Now that money is no longer an issue, is it still worth it to take the scholarship, and do non-scholarship cadets have any limitations or disadvantages?
There are benefits to doing both.
As a Scholarship Cadet, assuming it is a 4 year, you would be contracted as soon as you complete your paperwork and pass the APFT. As long as you abide by the contract requirements you will keep your contract throughout. You would be eligible for CULP right away, you would also be eligible for summer training opportunities the summer after you sophomore year. There would be less stress about whether you will get a contract later as a non scholarship cadet. You would not only have your tuition paid but would also receive the $1200.00 per year book money and the monthly stipend for both your freshman and sophomore year totaling about $8900.00.
Now for the downside. Being a Scholarship cadet comes with it's own stress level. You have the first year to basically test drive the program, once you start day one of your sophomore year you are obligated to the Army. Here is where the stress and risk comes into play. Should something happen once your are under obligation, not making height/weight, your grades slip below the minimum, fail the APFT, get a MIP or MIC, a major traffic ticket, DUI, get into any type of trouble even a school honor violation in some cases, there is the strong chance depending on what happens that you could be disenrolled from the program. Just search this forum, there are stories of this happening. If you are disenrolled after you are under obligation you will either be required to enlist or pay back the total scholarship at the amount the Army has paid, which is the rack rate of tuition including your freshman year tuition. The kicker here is that it will not be your choice, the Army will decide for you and given the current drawdown it would most likely be a pay back. Depending on where you are going to go to school this amount could be pretty high.
As a Non Scholarship cadet you would have the first two years to decide if you want to continue with the program before signing a contract. Should one of the things mentioned above happen you could leave the program and not owe the Army anything, after you start your junior year and sign a contract you could be required to enlist, if they decide not to make you enlist then you would owe nothing. One thing to consider, if you are on scholarship and are disnerolled you not only have to pay back what has been paid you would now have to fund the rest of your college on your own. As a non scholarship cadet with a school scholarship, should you be disenrolled you would owe nothing and would still have your school scholarship that would pay for the rest of college once you left ROTC.
Other then not being eligible for CULP or summer training until your junior year you would still be able to participate in all the Battalion activities and training the same as any scholarship cadet. If you perform well once you start ROTC there would also be a chance of getting a Battalion scholarship before your junior year that may be able to piggyback onto your school scholarship.
A scholarship cadet gets no extra points on the OML. The cadets mentioned above may have had higher points from any part of the scale or they may have taken advantage of the new ADSO/Major program.
This is something you will need to think about. The best advice given is that you should select the school you really want to attend, the one that you see yourself doing well and being happy, if that's the school with the ROTC Scholarship great, if it's the school with the school scholarship, that's great as well.