ROTC
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Anonymous
| Does anyone have experience with ROTC and how it dovetails with admission to highly selective schools? We can afford to pay for school but just wondering if ROTC would be good to explore for the leadership experiences, no debt and five years of guaranteed job out of school. |
Anonymous
| IME, ROTC scholarships are offered after the student has been admitted to the school and enrolled in an ROTC approved major. |
Anonymous
| interesting, thanks. Is it well-known what the major would need to be? ie just STEM? |
Anonymous
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https://www.advocatesforrotc.org/national/ lists the ROTC programs and whether they are on or off campus at the Ivies and some other top colleges. On campus is more convenient but off campus just adds a commute (ROTC provides transportation)
You can apply for a 4 year scholarship while in high school or apply for the college program (and compete for a scholarship) during freshman or sophomore year. All majors are acceptable, but technical, language and nursing majors are prioritized. There is an additional ROTC curriculum for each branch and the Navy/Marines have some distribution requirements (calculus, US history, English, physics, comp sci). Scholarships cover tuition, fees, books, and a small living allowance plus transportation to school, but they do not cover room and board. The Air Force also offers a type 2 scholarship capped at $9,000/semester for tuition. College program students who don't get a scholarship can get a stipend of a few hundred dollars a month. |
Anonymous
You are aware that this “guaranteed job” will require your kid to go wherever they tell him, including combat zones? Your kid won’t always be able to come “home” for thanksgiving and other special holidays. Your kid could get assigned to a base in Germany or Korea or Guam; your grandchild could be born and raised there, making it hard for you to visit often. It’s a lot more than just a “guaranteed job.” |
Anonymous
| Yes, I'm aware and this is for my daughter! |
Anonymous
Women deploy and get stationed in remote locations too. |
Anonymous
Look, very few parents, esp. ones on DCUM, aren't aware of how the military works. |
Anonymous
You think most just out of college kids are going to have leave to travel home for Thanksgiving and “special holidays”? I wouldn’t want my child to produce grandchildren right out of college, either. We live in an area with lots of military officers and while yes, there are some tough deployments, we also have friends who’ve moved from here to England, Belgium, Japan, Norway, DC (that’s the worst) and Germany. Not exactly hardship posts and they and their extended families get to see each other often. Also lots of retired military parents at little kids’ school in their 40s and 50s collecting military pension and working for contractors. It’s not a bad life. They usually get a year here or there to do (paid for) masters degrees while active duty too. OP, my childhood friend’s husband did ROTC as an engineering student, became a pilot, and is now a base commander. FIL was orphaned as a kid and did ROTC at UVA to pay for college. Studied electrical engineering and was stationed in Florida testing missles during Vietnam. |
Anonymous
Parents of "little kids" while in their 50s is definitely not common among military active duty/retirees. |
Anonymous
| My nephew did ROTC at a HYPS. He served in Afghanistan, then did an elite MBA. He is now making bank, but his life was on the line for awhile. I don't think his mother ever got over it. |
Anonymous
| don't forget the military academies if your child has the grades and you have a congressional rep. They're free, then time served. I know a lot of ROTC families who tried that route first but then had to fall back on ROTC at a private school because DS didn't get into Annapolis, West Point, etc. |
Anonymous
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Look up info about ROTC on Service Academies Forum. They cover all the possible military options for college kids. Lots of posters with experience with these programs both as students and as parents.
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Anonymous
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My son is about to start as a Freshman on an Army ROTC scholarship.
The application, for the first round, was due before any of the college applications. He was awarded the 4-year scholarship in the second round, before he had been accepted to any colleges. The scholarship was assigned to one school from the list of his top 3 choices he listed on his application. He did not list a major, as he hasn't declared one yet. He may have listed areas of interest. He has since transferred it twice, first to the school he was first going to go to, then the school which he was waitlisted at, where he will now be attending. After college, he will likely go Active Duty and might be stationed far away. He might also be deployed. He is a military brat and moved a lot as a kid, including living in Germany. He knows what he is getting into. It is a wonderful opportunity and a great experience Signed, A Mom who did ROTC and served on Active Duty for more than a decade |
Anonymous
| my brother did Navy ROTC at a highly selective private school and it was a good experience. |