College program and scholarship questions

[WEGL12]

I have a few questions about NROTC as a college programmer and scholarships for NROTC. I recently spoke with the recruiting officer at Auburn and was told that very few people received scholarships as college program students last year. I will transfer next fall to Auburn with close to 60 hours completed. I have a 3.85 GPA after completing 35 hours and I work full time. I plan to take three years after transferring to get my degree in aerospace engineering. I was told I could still join the NROTC unit as a college program but it was pointed out that scholarships are rare at this time. He mentioned a two year scholarship, which he believes is my best option. The way he described it was I could apply this spring before transferring with an extension that allows me to take three years to complete my degree. However he was unsure of the details and said he would know more in January. I was unaware that I could apply for a scholarship before I joined the unit. Has anyone heard of or received this type of scholarship before? My last option was to join as a college program student and compete for advance standing. Is this a common path for college program students? I am more concerned about getting a commission than the benefits such as free tuition. I am determined to become a naval officer so if NROTC doesn’t work out I plan to apply for BDCP or OCS. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. Early thanks for the responses.

 

[OSUbeaver]

I can't speak on most of what you asked about in your post but what I can say is that advanced standing is not a common way for college programmers to go. I came into NROTC as a college programmer and picked up a PNS scholarship at the end of my freshman year. I know many others who picked up a national scholarship at the end of their freshman year. I don't know anyone who actually picked up advanced standing but that doesn't mean it can't be done. Hope this helped in some way.

 

[MIDNJAC]

I don't recall there being many advanced standing mids during my time in the program. Maybe one or two in classes that were ahead of mine, but I know they pretty much shut that option down prior to my junior year (2005). In fact, there were two guys in my class who still hadn't picked up scholarships by the summer after sophomore year, and they only had one more scholarship to give out for that period/year. One of those guys is in the SH-60B FRS now, and one is a civilian, so I guess you can see how that worked out. I too started out as a college programmer, and like OSU, picked up a scholarship after my freshman year. It's not too hard to do if you stick with the program and do well in school (though maybe this is changing nowadays). Like you, I was a transfer student with similar college credits under my belt when I began NROTC. Not a big deal to do, and I'm sure your prospective unit will be willing to work with you if you show interest. A word of caution though, be careful what you are committing to if they are throwing non-standard scholarships your way. They offered me some sort of nuke oriented 2 year scholarship when I first signed up, and when the LT asked me if I had any interest, I mentioned that I really had no intention of going into the nuke community and would try my luck as a college programmer. Not sure if they would have held me to the nuke thing had I accepted, but just be aware that there are some "special interest" scholarships out there that could potentially box you into a corner when it comes time for service selections.

As a transfer student, just know that if you accept a standard 2 or 3 year scholarship and it ends up taking you longer to complete than you had planned, you will likely need to pay for the difference out of pocket. There is a process where you can apply for an extension, but I don't know of too many folks who got anything out of it. I ended up paying for 2 out of 3 quarters of my last (5th) year in the program. Just something to think about.

Aside from NROTC, BDCP is one of the biggest scams left in commissioning programs, and if you have the means to get accepted and don't mind the idea of OCS, then I say give it a shot. The money is great and you still end up with the same shiny gold bars at the end of the day. Had I known of this program when I first looked into NROTC, I would have probably applied.

 

[Immy]

On scholarships for college programmers -- word I've got (and this seems to be true of NROTC in general) is that all the scholarships other than the PNS scholarship are virtually non existent for this fiscal year, so don't get your hopes up.

 

[MIDNJAC]

On scholarships for college programmers -- word I've got (and this seems to be true of NROTC in general) is that all the scholarships other than the PNS scholarship are virtually non existent for this fiscal year, so don't get your hopes up.

Wow, if that's true that sucks for a lot of college programmers out there.

 

[OSUbeaver]

On scholarships for college programmers -- word I've got (and this seems to be true of NROTC in general) is that all the scholarships other than the PNS scholarship are virtually non existent for this fiscal year, so don't get your hopes up.

Word from.....?

 

[WEGL12]

When I spoke with the unit’s recruiter I was told that no college program students received a scholarship last year. He didn’t know how long this would last, but from the way he talked it seems that very few scholarships will be available for college programmers. He mentioned advanced standing but after doing some research this seems to be extremely rare. Another scholarship he mentioned was the Tweedale Scholarship, which is only available for student not currently in the NROTC program. I haven’t found a large amount of information on this scholarship. Does anyone know anything about this scholarship? Thanks for the help.

 

[Hawk12]

The Tweedale Scholarship is for technical majors. It is given out by a PNS, which each have two per year. Similar to the Leadership Scholarship but with the technical requirement.

Iowa State has some info on it: http://www.navy.iastate.edu/prospective/scholarships/tweendale.html

 

[Immy]

Word from.....?

Sorry, I should have clarified.

Word from the CO here at the NROTC unit (multiple times, as well as in my individual interview with him) as well as what I've read on here from other NROTC units.

It sucks, but now I'm just trying that much harder to get the PNS scholarship.

 

[P3 F0]

I did CP all the way through (this was 15 years ago). I was a good performer in ROTC, and the unit liked me. This was key, because it just so happened that at my junior year, only a few people in the entire country got picked up for advanced standing, and I wasn't one of them. Instead of giving me the boot, the unit was nice enough to keep me around and let me reapply the next year. Picked it up and graduated. But I don't know of many people that have gone this route. The vast majority of folks get scholarships.

 

[Phoenix1]

Speaking as a college programmer that made it through, unlike most of these posts, CP was awesome. No calc, no physics, no payback if you mess up/change your mind, etc. And you still get school paid for... As most previous posts have said, there are not a lot of CP's out there because advanced standing knocks a lot of CP's out going into junior year. That means there are few CP's with adv standing and lots of state tuition waivers to give out. If you are in a state that does this, you can get your tuition waived. Different than scholarship, which you pay back if you get kicked out or change your mind or something. The state tuition waivers are a gift from the state on behalf of the NROTC program you are in. It just waives your tuition, no matter what the value is... also you are not held to the same course checklist that scholarship students are held to: no calc 1&2, no phys 1&2. There is another requirement they have that you would not have as well and I just can't remember what it was.

Bottom line, your grades, if there are advanced standing spots, you top of the list. There are VERY few CP's that have decent grades... why? Because the CP's with good grades already got picked up for scholarship the previous year or something. Most CP's going for advanced standing are only in that situation because their grades were bad, conduct was bad, you name it, they had a problem with their package and they didn't make the scholarship cut. So guys like you that are in the CP/adv standing situation because of when you joined NROTC or other different odd reasons almost always top the list, nationally, for getting advanced standing. I know I did, multiple guys from my unit got it. The only ones that didn't had less than 2.5gpa's.

...The only thing you need to watch out for is that dreaded year that no advanced standing slots come through. And that happens for various reasons, not enough academy guys dropped out, not enough NROTC scholarship guys dropped out, etc. Somewhere the attrition didn't hit the estimates so they don't have slots. Advanced Standing awardees are a essential attrition slot fillers. I only saw 1 semester of my 8 where no slots came down. The other 7 semesters, slots were available and people from my unit got some of them. So if you can dodge that one time no slots come through, you are set. Maybe if you do hit that bad semester, your unit will let you hang around and re-apply the following like that one post said happened to one of his buddies or something.

All in all, awesome deal. Better than scholarship if you ask me, and it honestly is if you make advanced standing and your state is a state tuition waiver participant. You just run the risk of seeing the no slots come down when you are up for adv standing. Its a good deal, PM me if you have more specific questions seeing that so far no one has had first hand experience as a CP and getting adv standing except for the one who was 15 year ago...