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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]West Point or Cornell ROTC?[/quote]
Mom of current WP student (cadet) in her first year (plebe year).  She also applied to Cornell and other schools that offered Army ROTC.  (She is not the PP's DD above who checked out the Virginia schools; we are in California)

I'm assuming your kid is a junior or younger in high school, because it's probably too late to start the application process for WP.  Your student needs a nomination, which is a whole other application process in conjunction with the WP application process.

With that assumption in mind, the best thing your DC can do is apply for WP's Summer Leaders' Experience (called SLE).  It takes place the summer before senior year.  The application for that opens in or around January; it's a rolling admission process so it's worth getting on it the first day it opens.

SLE is a week-long "camp" at WP where the kids get a feel for what it will be like.  It's very helpful for kids to figure out if they want that lifestyle vs a typical college experience.  My kid loved SLE because she "found her people"--super athletic but also geeky smart, and people who love the outdoors.  She also went to the Navy's version, called "Summer Session" and that helped her see the differences in the day-to-day of the Naval Academy experience (for her, she wants to be on the move and outdoors, and the Navy is more inside (inside ships, inside cockpits, etc).

Your kid has to pass a physical called the "Candidate Fitness Test" (CFT) as part of their WP application.  If they go to SLE, that test will be part of the week's experience.

I think for many, the hardest thing is to pass the medical tests (Department of Defense Medical Exam Review Board, or DoDMERB).  There are many things that can get kids disqualified.

The real differences between a school like Cornell vs. WP are, IMO

1) the day-to-day experience is military-immersive, (really hard, made hard on purpose to challenge the cadet physically and psychologically)

2) the emphasis at WP is leadership training.  Everything is designed to teach a cadet to lead, as their job after WP is to lead the enlisted.

3) unlike civilian colleges, everyone who graduates goes to work for the same company, in a sense.  Big Army

4) the experience puts the individual in that 'Band of Brothers' mindset. They talk about their friends as if they are family.  They "have each other's backs." And they are all high-performers with team-mentality that are committed to each other.  This is special.  It's a VERY different experience than my other DD is having at a civilian college.

Hope this helps!

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