Good luck on the application. Intel can be very difficult to be accepted for. Recently they had a bit of an ensign shortfall and have been taking more applicants than normal but that will close up fast if the past repeats itself.
Your questions:
- NIOBC has a new class onboard about every 6 weeks of about 25 or less people. I had to wait about a month, others in my OCS class (Mar29) have had to wait a bit longer as they were given the class following mine. I did OHARP for a month. They do not do stash duty so if you are waiting, you will likely be doing OHARP.
- See above.
- Yes, move your things here. For your next move, you can then very easily have the movers come and relocate your things elsewhere. Otherwise you will have your possessions split into two places come time for your next PCS. Then again I don't have a lot of possessions so I guess my view here would be different than someone with a family and a more established home setting.
- Of course bring your family, its not like OCS. You get weekends, you live off base. Basically the course is 0800 -1600, sometimes a little bit earlier on good days. That being said the middle part of the program becomes time intensive (our class is approaching this period) for a time and your day will be more like 0700 - 1700 and then back in the evening 1900-2200 and then back again on weekends.
The base is nice and set on the beach. Lots of decent places to live, very family friendly. As I understand they are also good about giving you time at the end of the course to get your things squared away for your follow on operation tour which you will know by week 9ish.
First things first though. I had to wait over a year and a half between getting accepted and going to OCS. And OCS is a beast of its own, so you have some hurdles to move over before you get here. Good luck though, I love what I am doing, it was well worth the effort.