Just to clarify, University of Southern California or University of South Carolina. USCalifornia has the same rotc unit as UCLA and they have been very good at communicating with my son. He was waitlisted at UCLA but the unit seems to be very helpful nonetheless.
I am sorry. I must have misunderstood but we received an email from the CO and said that it was the UCLA/USC Consortium. Maybe they are two different units but we understood it to be one due to the email. Sorry about the confusion. WIth that said, Yes my son was awarded the scholarship but also should know by his number one choice UT Austin by the end of the week. Being from the Los Angeles area, he really wants to go outside California for college. Hoping for UT Austin, but Florida State his second choice has accepted him so I don't think we are pursuing the waitlist option. Would rather give that spot to another student who really desires to go there.
Thank you. I think the thing that she is most torn about is the size of the units. UCLA & USC seem really big while UNC and Duke seemed smaller. Princeton when we visited was very small and not many women, which she didn't like.
If you have FSU/Tallahassee questions, I can help. Although I'm not too familiar with ROTC there.
Thank you!
I believe your DS is NROTC, right? The OP's question was about AROTC, so that may have been the confusion o about the unit relationships.
As others have said pick the school not the ROTC unit. There are advantages to big and small groups alike. Proximity to training facilities would be one thing to look into. Ask where they do PT. Where they do field trainings like Land Nav, or FTX and such. If they are close to base it means less travel time. If they go cross town for labs that is travel a few times per week.
Hi, I know it's a late reply but I was wondering if you or your DS thinks that getting the scholarship helped increase your admission chances at those schools? I'm in the process of applying for an AFROTC scholarship right now and those schools are all high on my list but I don't know if it's worth putting them as 1 of the 5 if it won't really help admissions since they're all pretty competitive and it's way more likely I get rejected and might end up "wasting a spot". Thank you!
Hi- not sure tbh. She has an AA degree and good stats which I think helped with UCLA. I think it may have helped with UNC because they contacted her congratulating her about the scholarship before she even knew she got it and the OOS acceptance percentage is really low. Princeton also suggested she apply Restrictive early action, which she didn't want to do because then she couldn't ED to USC which was her first choice at the time. He also suggested she move Princeton up to choice 1 or 2 (which it really wasn't bc she really wanted west coast). I think that hurt her admissions at Princeton, but I believe had she done REA she would have had a better chance at being accepted. I would say be very conscious of the ordering of schools- you can always change where you go later. Her first choice was USC but after visiting during the school year it didn't feel like the right fit & she loved UCLA so she requested to transfer the scholarship and it was an easy process.
Unless things have changed you can take your AFROTC scholarship to any school. You’re not limited to the selected five. My son did this.
My DS put USC as his number one when applying for the AROTC scholarship last year. The major/program he applied for was extremely competitive and definitely the biggest “reach” of his civilian choices (he also applied to 2 SA’s). His ROTC interview was with the USC unit contact (I’m sorry I don’t know his title/rank) because that is who reached out to him for the scholarship interview. After he received the scholarship he had to accept it before he actually got his acceptance from USC. He accepted it for USC and hoped for the best. Anyway, he did get in, and we were all pleasantly surprised (shocked, if you will
) and he was thrilled (he ultimately ended up at USMA). I mean, based on the acceptance rate for his program, i think having the AROTC scholarship helped him. And he had really positive communication with his interviewer throughout the process. I don’t have experience with AFROTC there, though. But I think it’s worth it to put one or two competitive schools on your list if you really want to go there 
My son is AFROTC at USC so can't speak on AROTC. But USC is a great school with a lot of resources and activities - and LA is a great place to go to college with so many things to do. Plus he's learned to compare house/apt rentals and how to budget and cook.