USNA vs. Other Options

nosedive22

5-Year Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2010
Messages
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I'm a 16 year old girl and it is my dream to become a Marine officer. My concern is that if I apply for USNA and am accepted, I will spend most of my time behind a desk without ever getting to experience being close to the action or will have to go Navy. Not that I wouldn't be honored, but I want to be a Marine. I'm sad that I will never be able to go infantry, but at least if I enlist I can try for MP or Truck driver, and get outside the wire a bit. Would it be better for me to go to school now, enlist and then try for NROTC or OCS? Do you need a four year degree for NROTC and OCS? What are the requirements? Can I take classes while enlisted? Is this recommended? If I do go the USNA route, how much control will I have over MOS and whether I go Navy or Marine Corps? What exciting jobs can female officers do? Lots of questions! Sorry if similar ones have already been posted on this forum and answered. Thank you in advance!
 
nosedive...it sounds like you need first off to go over to your local Marine Recruiting Office and ask to get connected to the Officer recruiter. They don't necessarily work in the same places - but one should connect you to the other. Also you should be able to get alot of information online via the USMC links that are there...just google "USMC" or "Marine Corps" and get to the .mil site - which are the official sites - and read read read to see all that is there.

As far as your understanding of USNA - it seems like you need a bit more acquaintance with that system as well. Again - get onto the usna.edu page and read, read read. If you know anyone personally who went to USNA locally - talk to them. You have a local USNA Blue and Gold Officer - again you can find this online through USNA.edu ( note - the other .com/.net are affilates with USNA, one is the alumni page - but not the main school site) The BGO as they are known, are your local USNA admissions connection. Try and connect with them.

You are asking a broad range of questions and before this site answers them I suspect you would get more out of it if you plowed through information on your own to narrow down your thoughts.

for the record - our girl heads TOMORROW to TBS aka "The Basic School". She always wanted USNA ending up as a Marine. There are no guarantees that you get Marine when you take this route, but she felt this is what she wanted to do. She did receive a Marine Corps ROTC scholarship in 2006 which would have guaranteed her Marines - but USNA was her first choice. She graduated last month as a 2ndLieutenant USMC out of USNA - one of the 250 or so of her 1000 class - so it can be done.

And tomorrow the tables turn all over once again as she begins on the ground floor of Marine Officer training for the next 6 months - as every single Marine Officer must attend TBS regardless of whether you graduated #1 out of USNA, #1 out of Harvard through OCS or #1 out of your ROTC/Marine option or through the Platoon Leaders Course option.....everyone starts again to be formed into a Marine.

Don't weary of your desire to serve your country. Be prepared for surprises and unexpected turns as you travel this journey. It's much more like a river rapids ride for you and your loved ones.

God bless you and good luck.
 
Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but the Naval Academy is somewhat selective as far as WHO gets to go into the Marine Corps.

Isn't it true, that NOBODY is allowed to go Marine Corps unless it is their FIRST choice for service selection?

Further, that you cannot separately select Marine Ground and Marine Air as two different choices.

In other words, you cannot have a selection card that looks like this:
1. Marine Air
2. Navy Air
3. Marine Ground
4. Submarines
5. NFO
6. SWO

On the other hand, the other service selections, namely "Submarines" has no problem with it not being a first choice. The Submarine community claims that everybody entering the community requested it. What they don't tell you is that it does not have to be your first choice.

I believe the midshipmen have to make at least 6 selections. That's pretty hard to do and NOT include "Submarines", even if it is one's last choice. When they get that last choice (which is somewhat rare, but not unheard of), they say, "That was one of your choices!"

Duh - well, yeah.
 
my understanding was that my girl had 5 requests and she listed Marine Ground first, Air second. But there were predetermined things that you already had taken which would affect the likelihood of your choices: things like the aviation aptitude test, DLAB tests, etc. Marine Air wanted her badly since she scored at the top in that 3 score aptitude, but she wanted Ground and requested that as her top choice.

The key is to just be good. shut up...do your best as a servant/warrior/leader in every regard. Be a team player. Focus on the task at hand for the entire 4 years. Expect to fail. Expect to succeed in things too. Get to know the Marines connected to your Company. In our girl's case she had a Gunny Sgt attached to her company...yipee!! It was easy for her to make her wishes known for the entire time he was attached to her Company ( 3 years). I met the guy 3 years back and when I told him myself her wish ( when she was still a 3/C was to be a Marine one day, he himself told me that he saw 'marine potential' in her and would keep an eye on her. When she was 'voluntold' she had to interview for subs ( as one of the top females with aptitude for it, and how she shuddered at that thought) the Gunny took her aside and told her he would make sure "THEY" didn't get her, she would be a Marine. At Commissioning Week, when all the festivities for family was underway I met again that wonderful Gunny and thanked him for looking after our girl for the Corps and he told me there was 'no way' that she was going to go anything but USMC if he had anything to say. Which only means that her wishes matched the Corps interest in her. Nice, eh? But there were other midshipmen who put USMC and did not get selected....So we just happened to be one family with a young lady who was very blessed that her dreams aligned with the Corps, thanks be to God.

So the bottom line is Marine is one of your requests as a USNA midshipman it is not a sure thing for you as your service selection.

Another thing....as one who heads to Quantico you do NOT know your MOS until the end of your 6 month training. This is important for anyone who only knows the enlisted side of things. Enlisted knows their MOS before. The Marine Officers must start again and be ranked within their class of peers and based on their performance they request their MOS and will learn their 'fate' at the end of Quantico.

On our case, with a girl having been an Arabic major - the odds are she will get what her Marine heart wants - boots on the ground deployed overseas. (gulp, says my mother's heart - but it's what she wants) But it's all up to her now - starting tomorrow.

God bless all those newbie Marine Officers tomorrow! I'm cheering for 'em all.:thumb:
 
Good luck to your young woman and all of the new TBS "fodder" :eek: My Mid (can't believe she's 2/C!!) will miss her!
 
The key is to just be good. shut up...do your best as a servant/warrior/leader in every regard. Be a team player. Focus on the task at hand for the entire 4 years. Expect to fail. Expect to succeed in things too.

I think that's true, but there are many who do exactly what you recommend and, yet, their grades determine their fate to a LARGE degree.

Sure, you can have good grades and get yourself into trouble which may preclude certain service selection options. Then again, you can do EVERYTHING right, get mediocre/poor grades, and NOT get exactly what you want.

Of the three major areas that determine class standing: Military aptitude, physical fitness, and academics - by far, academics carries the most weight.

And class standing has considerable weight with regards to service selection - although, as I've come to learn, not nearly the weight it used to have back in my day. Back then, people mostly got what they wanted unless they were not physically qualified or had some sort of spatial relation problem that prohibited them going aviation. If you came to the Naval Academy with less than 20/20 vision, you knew at the outset that flying was not an option. That isn't the case anymore.

In my day, there was no such word as "voluntold."
 
Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but the Naval Academy is somewhat selective as far as WHO gets to go into the Marine Corps.

Isn't it true, that NOBODY is allowed to go Marine Corps unless it is their FIRST choice for service selection?

Further, that you cannot separately select Marine Ground and Marine Air as two different choices.

In other words, you cannot have a selection card that looks like this:
1. Marine Air
2. Navy Air
3. Marine Ground
4. Submarines
5. NFO
6. SWO

On the other hand, the other service selections, namely "Submarines" has no problem with it not being a first choice. The Submarine community claims that everybody entering the community requested it. What they don't tell you is that it does not have to be your first choice.

I believe the midshipmen have to make at least 6 selections. That's pretty hard to do and NOT include "Submarines", even if it is one's last choice. When they get that last choice (which is somewhat rare, but not unheard of), they say, "That was one of your choices!"

Duh - well, yeah.

Judging from the past two years, there are always more people who put Marines as their first choice than there are slots so it has been rare for anyone to get it who has not put it as there first choice (I at least have not heard of anyone getting Marines who had not put it as their first choice).

The Academy has also said that nearly 100% get one of their top three choices.

As far as the decreasing number of choices we have, the rumor mill agrees. In the past there were nearly 10 choices you could make, and apparently people could stack their choices with things that they knew they had no choice of getting so they were guaranteed their top choice. Nowadays people are saying the class of '11 and beyond will only decide between SWO, Subs, Navy Air (Pilot/NFO decisions made after service selection), and Marines (Air/Ground decisions made after service selection). Only if you screened for EOD/SEALs or applied for Med Corps then those choices will show up. Again, this last paragraph is rumor so treat is as such.
 
Memphis-
you are correct-

one can select Marines as an option.
One does not list marine options further than that until they have been selected for Marines.

Thus, the list is
Marines
then everything else you want on the Navy side of the equation.
Once selected for marines, the options are then Marine air, ground, etc. The qualifying tests for air are the same, no matter if you go Navy or Marine, although to get marine air you will need to score 4's or better on all parts; I would further suggest you need to do that on the Navy side of things as well, as Navy Air continues to be a highly sought after slot.

Just a few other thoughts to set the record straight for those considering USNA and opportuitues for commissioning:


  • Understand that air [navy and marine air] will carry more of a commitment time than other options, which can and does factor into decisions as to what is requested.


  • Women Marines: understand that while boots on the ground may sound hard core, the reality is that women are in supportive roles and NOT marine infantry that one typically associates with boots on the ground. Big difference.


  • As with ALL choices, list them in the order you want them. If Marines is your first choice, then put it in the number one slot. As with most service communities, they want to pick the Mids who what them FIRST, regardless if that is Marines, Navy Air, NFO, etc. SWO needs to be on the list somewhere, and there are plenty that will list that as their first choice as well.

  • Sub recruitment: Have not heard [until now] that any female was voluntold to apply for subs. :confused: What I was told in a recent CGO brief is that for this ground-breaking go around, there were more than enough qualified women to choose from, that qualification included pre-selection for Nuclear power [the Navy side of the equation], and that those not in the ranks of the top-100 need not apply. Know a few that had the desire and interest, but lacked the OOM to get an invite to the party. Hats off and God speed to the ones that made the cut! :thumb:

    Which is a very different story from that of their make counterparts, for which several were "encouraged" to sub-select, OOM not withstanding. No doubt some will use a different adjective to describe their experience, but the ones I know have made the necessary adjustment to meet the needs of the Navy. :thumb:

  • Service Selection: USNA takes great pains to give Mids experiences across ALL communities, both on the Marine and Navy side. One would hope our Mid sons and daughers are mature enough to decide what is a best fit for them [behind the scenes parental guidance acceptable], and make their wishes known to those who can guide them best, without the interference moms and dads, no matter how well-meaning.

One final thought about boots on the ground.
Navy or Marine they are all boots on the ground, and in the air, on and under the sea. Never forget that all are committed to service to the country, and God bless them ALL for it.
 
J

As far as the decreasing number of choices we have, the rumor mill agrees. In the past there were nearly 10 choices you could make, and apparently people could stack their choices with things that they knew they had no choice of getting so they were guaranteed their top choice.



If I remember correctly, even with all the choices we still had to put SWO relatively high on the list (no lower than 5 I think?). So you couldn't just put pilot, fo, eod, seals, marine air, marine ground, etc.
 
If I remember correctly, even with all the choices we still had to put SWO relatively high on the list (no lower than 5 I think?). So you couldn't just put pilot, fo, eod, seals, marine air, marine ground, etc.

Yeah, I doubt there was ever an infallible way to stack it. Rumor also has it that you MUST go to Leatherneck to compete for a Marine slot in the future.
 
That is my understanding as well. I have been told that how one performs at leatherneck strongly influences the outcome of Marine Selectee.
 
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