USMA vs Stanford AROTC

foong

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Mar 18, 2021
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Simply - what are your thoughts on these two different commissioning pathways? USMA or Stanford ROTC?
 
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IMO, it would be pretty tough to beat a 4-year AROTC scholarship to Stanford. The only downside to Stanford specifically is that they do not host ANY ROTC program on campus. For AROTC they have a cross-enrollment agreement with Santa Clara. I don't know the logistic specifics of that arrangement, but in general cross-enrollment arrangements can be a pain.
 
As an incoming C/O '25 USMA appointee, it was USMA all the way for me as opposed to the 4-year AROTC scholarship I got to my plan B school because I love the style of life and culture at West Point. Obviously that should be a big consideration for you if you want a more normal college experience or the Service Academy style of 24/7 military living.
 
take this with a grain of salt since im obviously biased towards usma but if u got the smarts to get into stanford, u could always apply for grad school after 4 years at usma. if ur competitive enough usma even gives scholarships to a very select number of cadets for grad school. think of it like this: if u can get into usma, u can probably get into stanford. but if u get into stanford, it doesnt mean u can get into usma. and even though the academics at usma pales in comparison to stanford, having usma on ur resume if u apply to stanford grad school will def make u stand out. again take this with a grain of salt.
 
Just my perspective as someone who chose USMA over a 4 year ROTC scholarship to Cornell, I really wanted the experience that USMA has to offer. Even though Cornell probably had better academics, the culture and being surrounded with like minded individuals really won me over. Also similar to @bober1171 , you can only go to USMA once vs getting a masters/phd/md at Stanford, but it's really your choice- USMA would probably make you a better Army officer or CEO with the leadership and soft-skills development, but Stanford would probably make you a better scientist or doctor with the pure academics.
 
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