Which NROTC units/schools that do/don't "fill up" for scholarship recipients?

Amazed

Amazed

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Just curious if anyone knows which schools that have NROTC get filled to capacity?

My engineering major DD is an NROTC scholarship recipient. :) It was placed at her #1 choice...which was her #1 choice way back when she did her application. As the months have passed and we've been touring schools, her "top 5 list" has evolved. We are planning on visiting a bunch of schools the 1st week of April (school break) and I'm worried if she decides on school X --and it's not where the scholarship was originally placed-- that it may not have an NROTC scholarship slot available.

So my question is....which schools are more problematic to transfer her scholarship to because they fill up quickly? ​
 
Amazed said:
Just curious if anyone knows which schools that have NROTC get filled to capacity?

My engineering major DD is an NROTC scholarship recipient. :) It was placed at her #1 choice...which was her #1 choice way back when she did her application. As the months have passed and we've been touring schools, her "top 5 list" has evolved. We are planning on visiting a bunch of schools the 1st week of April (school break) and I'm worried if she decides on school X --and it's not where the scholarship was originally placed-- that it may not have an NROTC scholarship slot available.

So my question is....which schools are more problematic to transfer her scholarship to because they fill up quickly? ​
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Three that I know of at the top of my head are Villanova, University of San Diego and Notre Dame. I'm sure others will chime in with schools they are aware of.
 
@Amazed: in general the SMCs, Embry-Riddle, and whichever basketball and football teams are doing well each year drive the popularity of NROTC units. Years ago, I learned that "back up" schools often had openings as applicants got into their first choice option (for instance, some consider Marquette to be a safety school for Notre Dame so it can find itself with openings after the placement process takes place)

If you want to get a perspective on this from a poster who claimed to be an insider in the NROTC placement process (approx. 2011-2013) search for posts from P-Flying17. She provides a great perspective on the process and has a lot of helpful posts during the timeframe she was active here.

To answer your questions, I recommend you go to this thread and see post #23.
https://www.serviceacademyforums.co...nrotc-school-choices.16486/page-2#post-154384

Good luck!
 
From what we were told last year schools with highly selective admissions were likely not to fill up, which makes sense, so Ivies and other highly selective schools. Also, @NavyNOLA , who was a PNS until recently posted last year that units were less likely to fill up in the future as the Navy is moving away from awarding as many 4 year scholarships in favor of more 2 and 3 year scholarships and Advanced Standing, but they are not reducing the number of scholarships spots available at the individual units. That said, you can switch units multiple times and there is also a waitlist process if a unit is full when you want to transfer in. It may be worth it to move her scholarship to her current #1 school now, to secure a place. If her choice changes after the visits in April, see if you can move it again. good Luck! It's an exciting time for sure. I remember touring schools with my DS.
 
I don't know about whether the NROTC unit at Purdue fills up, but we visited there and were very impressed with the school.
 
DS went to Purdue. Back then, the NROTC Unit didn't really have much of a social media presence but I noticed that they now have an active Facebook page. If you are interested in seeing the things the unit participates in, it is worth seeking out.
 
USMCGrunt said:
DS went to Purdue. Back then, the NROTC Unit didn't really have much of a social media presence but I noticed that they now have an active Facebook page. If you are interested in seeing the things the unit participates in, it is worth seeking out.
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I've noticed the same thing about University of Michigan this year.
 
DD's scholarship is placed at Georgia Tech. She was admitted there early action. We visited GT back in September and she liked it well enough I suppose. Last month when she was off from school, we visited several schools and she really liked Virginia Tech....a lot. So in 3 weeks when DD is off a week from school again, we are re-visiting VT and GT again. That same week, we are also seeing Purdue, Univ Michigan and Univ of Illinois (UIUC)..-- all accepted via early admission. The following week, we are visiting RPI. This puts us into the middle of April.

I'm afraid her top choices are full of competitive NROTC ss schools and by the time she is equipped with making a decision, it may be too late. I'd think that RPI may fill quickly since they offer Room and Board for all NROTC ss recipients, so there's that too. I'm thinking her 3 top choices (in no order) are VT, U-Mich, GT; followed by Purdue, and maybe RPI.

How quickly does GT fill up/ or does it?
Would it be smart to transfer to VT now and then transfer again if she loves Michigan (or Purdue or RPI) or back to GT- is that even possible?
 
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I don't know anything about whether VA Tech tends to fill up their scholarship spots. That may be a good question for the NROTC staff there. My DS is a 4/C at U Mich and loves it there. When we visited, we were told they rarely, if ever, fill their scholarship spots, because the university is so hard to get into. U Mich has an acceptance rate of about 28%. A quick search showed VA Tech with an admissions rate of about 71%, so my guess would be that it may be more likely to fill up. Looks like Georgia Tech also has an admission rate of about 25%, so my guess would be it's less likely to fill up. Keep in mind though the information above about the reduction in 4 year scholarships, but leaving the same number of scholarship spots at the units, so units are less likely to fill up. If your DD is confident she likes VA Tech better than GA Tech, it might be a good idea to move the scholarship to VA Tech now. She should be able to move it again, as long as there is space where she wants to move it. My suggestion would be to talk to her about what type of setting she sees herself in for college. GA Tech is in Atlanta, a major city; VA Tech is in a smaller city. Purdue is also in a similar size city to VA Tech. U Mich is in Ann Arbor, a city of around 120,000. Each will have their own feel and personality. It's great that you are able to visit all of them; there's nothing like being there in person. My DS and I visited U Mich, Purdue and UIUC spring break his junior year. They were all great schools and each definitely had it's own feel. UIUC was on spring break when we visited, so it was hard to get a good feel for the school without students there. I hope school will be in session when you visit.

If I can give a little advice, based on my experience last year; listen to what your DD wants to do about the scholarship. You can give input, but it's ultimately her decision. She has obviously made good decisions to this point, because she has so many great options to choose from. I know this is nerve wracking as a parent right now, wanting to help your child make the "right" decision. I think they handle it better than us sometimes; my DS was definitely calmer about his decision than me last year. His scholarship was placed at U Mich in November. In December he was deferred during early action. I suggested he may want to move the scholarship to Purdue to hold a spot there since it was his #2 school and he was already admitted there. I suggested this knowing U Mich told us they do not fill up, so he could move it back if he was admitted. Ultimately he told me he had a good feeling he would be admitted to U Mich and didn't want to move the scholarship. He was in communication with the Admissions office and NROTC adviser. He was admitted in February. The waiting period about killed me, but he seemed calm and confident with his decision.
 
My son goes to Purdue (AFROTC). Great school and will enjoy going there. Mediocre football team so that should keep the popularlity down although they did well in basketball. The only thing I can tell you about NROTC there is compared to the AF guys, they keep their hair really short
 
Amazed said:
DD's scholarship is placed at Georgia Tech. She was admitted there early action. We visited GT back in September and she liked it well enough I suppose. Last month when she was off from school, we visited several schools and she really liked Virginia Tech....a lot. So in 3 weeks when DD is off a week from school again, we are re-visiting VT and GT again. That same week, we are also seeing Purdue, Univ Michigan and Univ of Illinois (UIUC)..-- all accepted via early admission. The following week, we are visiting RPI. This puts us into the middle of April.

I'm afraid her top choices are full of competitive NROTC ss schools and by the time she is equipped with making a decision, it may be too late. I'd think that RPI may fill quickly since they offer Room and Board for all NROTC ss recipients, so there's that too. I'm thinking her 3 top choices (in no order) are VT, U-Mich, GT; followed by Purdue, and maybe RPI.

How quickly does GT fill up/ or does it?
Would it be smart to transfer to VT now and then transfer again if she loves Michigan (or Purdue or RPI) or back to GT- is that even possible?
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VT CC parent here - my DD is an NROTC 4 year scholar in the Corps of Cadets at VT. She loves it - moved to top of her list over Ga Tech and Purdue (no disrespect to either - both are schools "in our family" and we heart them, too). You say yours visited VT and it moved to the top of her list? This is important because VT is a Senior Military College (SMC) and so the ROTC experience is quite different than that at the other schools listed. Not better or worse - but definitely different. They are in uniform 24/7, live with the Corps, etc. My DD engineer absolutely loves it and her Navy unit - she found it to be the perfect balance between a SA and a regular ROTC college. That said - if VT is what your daughter wants, I know of at least three people over the last couple years who requested a move to VT from their original awarded schools and had no problem getting in. This MAY be because the Navy battalion at VT is substantially larger than a typical university due to it being an SMC and possibly has a higher capacity but I don't know that for sure so leave it to other experts. I would call the unit there and talk to them about it.

Not sure about acceptance rate at VT since the university acceptance rate is higher than the College of Engineering, which is quite competitive and if she is Navy, this is where their scholarships go. I agree with ProudDad17 totally on his take on letting your kid navigate this. I don't have a feel for the idea of a second transfer (or whether you meant before frosh year or later?) but my gut tells me that she should settle on "the one" and focus her attention there because these kids de-stress so much quicker when they simply have come to a final decision and start settling in and bonding with their school and future buds. Also limits a lot of stressful "second guessing." Agree with ProudDad17 too that she should visit the schools that are clearly at the top of her list. Again, I do not have specific knowledge on that last part about moving the scholarship around but my gut tells me she should do her damnedest to pick her "home" the first time. Good Luck - and GO HOKIES!
 
NavyLady64- thank you for your thoughts. We did also see TAMU, but she felt that TAMU was "too remote", but felt much more comfortable when we saw VT. (So we saw Univ. of New Orleans, then TAMU then Univ Texas-Austin and finally VT during her last week off from school). So she was able to kind of directly compare TAMU and VT, both SMCs. She didn't dislike TAMU, but did not care for the location of it...or the food. She felt the vibe of VT was more to her liking, enjoyed the food and liked the idea it was closer to home (which is in NY), although it is a 9 hour drive, so it would require a flight more often than not. She liked the smaller campus of VT vs. TAMU and VT has a very interesting double major Aerospace/Ocean Engineering with Naval Architecture minor. That major is unique to only VT. There is a lot of difference between schools that have CC/SMC and those that only have NROTC. I believe she may like the idea of more structure rather than less. She does talk a lot about UMich, but can't really form a real opinion until she steps foot on the campus and has her meeting with the NROTC coordinator. And then there's Georgia Tech, which she admits she didn't look at closely enough when we were there in the fall because she was too consumed with comparing it to the Naval Academy (which she fell in love with when we saw it late in the summer). DD still considers USNA her top choice. The Naval Academy was the 1st institution we looked at and until she began to see different colleges was she able to compare them more fairly. This is why we are doing a 2nd pass thru GT in a few weeks. Got to develop her plan B.....which I wonder (to myself only) if the plan B may become her plan A as the balance between a fair amount of structure and a more typical college experience vs. a whole lot of structure (USNA) vs. some structure (NROTC without SMC/CC).
 
Does anyone know whether or not Purdue University's NROTC unit tends to fill up for incoming scholarship freshmen? Thanks! Great Thread.
 
I noticed the comment above that mentioned that the Ivy NROTC units don't fill up. DS was accepted to an Ivy in December, and also completed his NROTC application by November (but physical test in early January). We are waiting for the news. I wonder if the fact that he listed this Ivy as his first choice will help his application? He did let the officer who was supporting his application know that he got in, and he has been in contact with the NROTC officers at the school. His academics are super strong (GPA and SATs couldn't be much higher, lots of AP classes) and he has applied for Engineering. Physical test was ok but nothing to brag about. Lots of school leadership and service. We are on pins and needles as he's really committed to the idea of pursuing NROTC, but our state University (which accepted him to the Honors college with a merit scholarship will make more financial sense if he doesn't get selected for NROTC.
 
teachersara said:
I noticed the comment above that mentioned that the Ivy NROTC units don't fill up. DS was accepted to an Ivy in December, and also completed his NROTC application by November (but physical test in early January). We are waiting for the news. I wonder if the fact that he listed this Ivy as his first choice will help his application? He did let the officer who was supporting his application know that he got in, and he has been in contact with the NROTC officers at the school. His academics are super strong (GPA and SATs couldn't be much higher, lots of AP classes) and he has applied for Engineering. Physical test was ok but nothing to brag about. Lots of school leadership and service. We are on pins and needles as he's really committed to the idea of pursuing NROTC, but our state University (which accepted him to the Honors college with a merit scholarship will make more financial sense if he doesn't get selected for NROTC.
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What schools you list or the order of the listing have no bearing on whether you receive a scholarship. Scholarships are awarded based solely on the overall strength of the application. Once awarded, the scholarship is placed at the applicant's #1 school, as long as there is an opening there. If not, they move down the applicant's list of schools until they get to one with an opening.
 
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